next message in archive
next message in thread
previous message in archive
Index of Subjects
Someone recently expressed an interest in upgrading a couple of teh packages that are included in the csuite distribution... apologies to whom ever... ;-), the message is lost in my inbox or gone to that great bit bucket in the ocean... The author did not specify which applications but typically the demand from our uses is directed either towards Lynx or Pine. (very few requests to upgrade ftpd... ;-) Both Lynx and Pine have undergone specific customization that contribute towards sustem security and assist our volunteers in the management of several thousand volunteers many of whom are new to the Internet. Among other custom changes we do not allow users to shell out of our applications and do not give them access to . files. In addition we have provided a number of changes that provide additional functionality that our users appreciate but which have not yet been accepted into the main distribution... Each time there is a new (general) distribution of an application that we use we undertake a three stage process of: 1) evaluating changes to make sure there is enough benefit for us to include the new version into the distribution This is not always the case because with Lynx, as an example, we are actively involved in the development process and we are often using a late incremental version ...before they locked down a new version number... ie. our 2.4-FM may be so similar to 2.6.0 that it's not worth changing the version number... (although this can be confusing to others...and is not currently the case) 2) integrating our changes, looking for _new_ security problems, debuging, and adding any new functionality for our users. Sometimes this takes a week and sometimes it takes a couple of months depending on how many differences exist and how many bugs turn up in our beta testing. 3) documenting the changes. (This is always done quickly and efficiently ...the documentation team is always waiting for the techs to finish... ;-) We would be very reluctant to distribute anything we were not prepared to present to our users. Lynx ------------------ The latest version of Lynx has (in our estimation) significant advantages for our users and we are currently in beta testing with a small group of users and finishing off the necessary code changes... we're still getting some problem reports from the small test group and will probablly run it for a week with a larger test group before unloading it on our user base in general. We haven't put a date on distribution of Lynx but it is in the works... Pine --------------- The new version of Pine is still being evaluated... there are some inconsistancies between the new version and our previous version that we would want to correct, and there are some new features that need to be disabled. Our evaluation group has not _yet_ reported any significant improvements that they feel our users would appreciate enough to send us more money... (they have noted improvements in address book etc...) so we'll probablly not try to rush out a new version of Pine. (always subject to change...) Distribured Development ------------------------------ We're very interested in sharing the workload with anyone who has the resources and would like to participate in the on-going development of CSuite and the distributed applications. We are engaging in a documentation project that will (hopefully) see us articulating our development philosophies relating to: - system security - user services - resource management - technological choices (Why _do_ we use shell rather then Perl?) Current Stage of CSuite Development -------------------------------------------- We are nearing the end of Alpha distribution (probablly one more Alpha release which will include, platform support for Sun, Linux and Solarius. The first beta releases should feature significant improvements in (install/setup) documentation along with mechanisms that will facilitate the future upgrading of applications. We've addopted the strategy of another software giant with respect to the release of Version 1.0 and are projecting a release date in the first quarter of 1997. (Microsoft quarters are roughly equivalent =+/- community net years ;-) Comments, discussion welcomed! --------------------------------------------------------------------- David Potter http://chebucto.ns.ca/CSuite/CSuite.html Documentation Team Chebucto Community Net ============== CSuite - Community Network Software ==================
next message in archive
next message in thread
previous message in archive
Index of Subjects