Koozali.org: home of the SME Server

Elections 2014 completed

Offline ReetP

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Elections 2014 completed
« on: December 01, 2014, 11:47:55 PM »
Just a short note to say that this years Elections are now over.

First of all is a big thank you to all those who bothered to vote. The support was unanimous, and that is a big pat on the back to all of those who have worked so hard on your behalf over the last 18 months.

My biggest regret is that more people didn't vote despite over 600 views of the thread. Perhaps people didn't feel that strongly, or were happy with the status quo, or perhaps felt that their vote would not change anything (which would be tragic).

Whatever the answer, it is something we have to work on in the forthcoming year.

I will make a full summary of the previous 18 months in due course, and will also announce some of the things that are currently either planned or underway.

We have a roadmap for the year ahead which I will also publish soon.

As a quick précis :

Daniel is finishing work on the new cluster - there is still a huge amount of domestic 'house keeping' to be completed and we are all still learning about how to run and manage the full system. We are now trying to post notices of security updates from upstream. We need to build new ISOs and take on managing release notes for new updates. Plus a dozen other things :-)

We need to pull in all contribs to the build system - again this is a huge task

We are going to organise a 'bug cleanup' weekend to try and clear up outstanding bugs. There are lots of old bugs that either need closing or updating etc etc. so we can then prioritise things that need fixing or changing.

Samba 4 development - Greg has made HUGE strides with this. Despite being told by many people that it was impossibl, Greg has somehow defied that and made something that works. He is currently working heavily on integration with Koozali SME. I cannot begin to tell you the amount of hours he has put in to this.... so when code becomes available for testing we will really need you to help him as much as possible.

Server Manager - Tony, Greg and I have been looking at this for some while, and as a result Tony has been working on some ideas which look amazing. In the fullness of time we hope to be able to preview some of this and start to develop a new framework for the server manager. Again, this is a huge task and will need a lot of support if you want to see it in production. But believe me, once you have looked at what could be, you will want it to work :-)

In the meantime some other items that we are either working on, or need to work on include :

Better cloud integration - Koozali SME makes an excellent Cloud server. Lots of us have been running it for some while. We need to make this part of the install/setup.

Remove PPTP which is known to be insecure and outdated but we need to have some proper working alternatives as we understand that (regrettably) lots of people rely on it.

Better 'drop in' App support - e.g. Docker so you can one click install Applications

Complete work on the Koozali brand and website and start to look at the transition of the distro to the new brand.

A closer look at sponsorship, advertisements, partnerships and other ways to encourage user and integrators alike to work with us and to get what they need fixed or built as soon as possible. If that means raising funds to pay developers to do some of the work then so be it.

There is plenty more, but we don't have many hands and need all the help we can get so PLEASE consider giving us a hand. It will NOT get built by itself.

Yes, you may be busy with work/families etc.

But so are we..... and I can't afford a divorce !

Surprisingly your Board and devs are NOT long haired, grey bearded, sandal wearing hippies with nothing better to do than sit in a darkened room writing code and dreaming of Open Source nirvana (OK - there may be an odd exception ;-) ). You could not pick them out in a crowd. So we are a normal bunch of people, some with some extraordinary talents. But like all normal people we have normal lives, families, jobs and and responsibilities.

We do what we can, when we can. Every minute you can give is important and appreciated. If you can't give a minute, give some money to help support us :-)

Donate : http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?action=profile;area=subscriptions

As ever you can find us on IRC at Freenode #SME_Server http://webchat.freenode.net/ or the mailing lists http://lists.contribs.org/mailman/listinfo/

Ok, enough of me.

Once again thank you for your support. We will do our level best to drive Koozali SME forward and make it the distro you want it to be.

Kind regards,

John Crisp
Koozali Foundation Inc.
...
1. Read the Manual
2. Read the Wiki
3. Don't ask for support on Unsupported versions of software
4. I have a job, wife, and kids and do this in my spare time. If you want something fixed, please help.

Bugs are easier than you think: http://wiki.contribs.org/Bugzilla_Help

If you love SME and don't want to lose it, join in: http://wiki.contribs.org/Koozali_Foundation