I am happy to see, that more and more Endian users feel exactly the same, as I do.
Yes, Endian is no community project, no matter if Endian names their free version "Community version" or not.
There is no community.
It is just a company named "Endian" who forked IPCop with the goal to steal open source software, close it up and then sell it with a profit. Endian is not open source. There are no open sources, at least not in a way, as the GPL licences say that they have to exist.
What Endian does is illegal. They violate the GPL licences of the software packages that they use for their product.
And there are some people like us, who use the free version and communicate via multiple unofficial forums that we have done in order to help us each other with this software. That is no community, either.
It is time to fork and build a true community project. But is it possible without the sources of 2.4 / only fragments of sources of older versions?
If it is possible, we should organize ourselves and fork, indeed.
But as happy as I am about the action of aender, I do not think that it was a good start.
We should organize ourselves first, find a mission and goals that we all agree to fight for. THEN we should find technical means how to achieve this goals (website, forum, version control, etc.).
It is about humans first, not about technical instruments.
It is about a community. Not about software. That's the point.
So I think that in first place we should make a list of people who are interested in participating, including their skills and how they think that they could help the project.
I can take over this part of organization.
So please:
If you are interested in helping forking Endian, please send an email to:
t-o-m@gmx.netand give the following information:
1. Your name or nickname
2. An email that we can communicate with you
3. An Skype username, if existing, so that we can chat or make realtime group discussions, if necessary
4. Your relevant skills with level of expertise (1 beginner, 2 intermediate, 3 good, 4 expert, 5 guru)
5. Your amount of time that you will be willing to involve yourself in hours (1 a few hours per month when there is something that I can help, 2 2-3 hours per week, 3 5-8 hours per week, 4 even more)
6. Your idea(s) (if you have) about a nice name for our fork
Examples for relevant skills are:
1. Linux tools & services (e.g. knowledge in one or more of the following programs/technologies: DHCP, DNS, QoS, Proxy, Antivirus, IDS, Software RAID, Hardware RAID, UPS, HTTPD, Networking such as bonding, multi-WAN, hardware monitoring, smartd, VPN, etc., etc., etc... Just look at all the components of Endian and see if you can help in any of them. Or look if there is something that you know and you think it would be great to integrate into the fork!)
2. Web-Development for the GUI
3. Software-Development for Tools such as efw-monitor, or any other software that could enpower our fork, e.g. iPhone apps for monitoring your Endian-forks, etc., etc., etc.
4. Kernel & compiling sources & under the hood: Do you know how to build a kernel in a way that we need it? Do you know under-the-hood things about Linux that you can contribute? Do you know how to compile sources? Have you experiences in forking a project?
5. Security: Are you a network security specialist? Can you advise us about how you think that Endian-fork should be made so that we achieve the highest possible security strenghs?
6. Tester: Do you like to help by installing betas and try them out and analyze them and feedback to the developers?
7. Distribution building: Do you know how to assemble all those parts to become a turnkey-distribution in form of a bootable ISO?
8. Administrator: Do you know how to assemble computers and or to administer them so that we have a testing server?
9. Graphics: Do you know how to make nice graphics and artwork so that our endian-fork gets a nice logo, design, etc in the webinterface, on our webpage, on our CD-labels, etc.?
10. Webmaster: Do you know how to fix us a decent project website?
11. Technical tools: Do you know how to set up e.g. a webforum, a wiki, a version control, a project management software, a communication platform, a torrent for downloading our ISOs, etc. etc. etc.?
12. Software development management: Do you know how to efficiently lead a group of people to develop software in a decent, efficient, painless and nice way?
13. Project lead: Do you have project management skills so that you can lead all those people and groups of people in a way that we truly achieve the goals and the overall mission?
14. Community management & Communications: Do you know how to write nice press release texts, talk to the media, talk to our community and keep them motivated and in love with our project? Do you know how to manage conflicts in a community?
15. Do you like to document features and write a good manual/ wiki?
16. Do you speak some language other then English and like to translate things, such as the GUI, the website, press releases, etc?
17. Do you have money and/or hardware or other resources, that you want to donate? E.g Hardware for a test & development server, special add on cards e.g. RAID controllers (so that we can make the fork support them!), webspace, bandwith, cash, etc.?
18. Do you have other skills that we could need at some point? E.g. legal advisory (especially about GPL, product names, etc., the legal organization form of endian-fork).
This list is just a brainstorm that I did right now. There are surely many other way in which someone could participate. So if you think you could be useful in some way please just send this email!!
After some time when we collected some names, I will contact you via the email to discuss the next steps that we think that we should undertake to get things started.
Let's see what the result will be!
All the best
Tom
Author