Re: [rdiff-backup-users] Future of rdiff-backup: Python 3 migration and project maintainership in general

[Dave Kempe]

Hey All, 
Firstly, speaking for Sol1, we apologise for the crappy job we have done 
maintaining the project. We had hope to devote more resources to it, however 
the coder we had in mind fell through, and our existing staff had too many 
other responsibilities to take up the load. 
Nevertheless, we still use rdiff-backup and have an interest in seeing it 
succeed. So, I'm in favour of Otto taking over, given he seems more qualified, 
however I would like Eric's work to be tested and included of course. 

We had attempted to move the pages to github pages, and are happy to have an 
independent github repo. I will do anything we can to help transition it to a 
new maintainer, and I'm keen to see it survive in Debian. 
I actually have a new Python coder joining Sol1 from tomorrow, so this might be 
his first task - assist with the transition. 

I would like to thank everyone who continues to use and support rdiff-backup, 
and particularly Eric Zolf, who has put in some serious coding time to get 
Python3 support happening recently. 

Please let me know what I can do to help. 

Dave Kempe 

> From: "Patrik Dufresne" <address@hidden>
> To: "Dale E. Qualls" <address@hidden>
> Cc: "Rdiff Backup" <address@hidden>
> Sent: Saturday, 27 July, 2019 7:57:44 AM
> Subject: Re: [rdiff-backup-users] Future of rdiff-backup: Python 3 migration 
> and
> project maintainership in general

> Hi Otto,

> I'm the software developer behind rdiffweb and Minarca (with a new release
> to be coming soon with self-hosted feature). While I have not contribute
> alot to rdiff-backup, I want to contribute to add new feature to make
> rdiffweb and Minarca better and faster. As of now, it's relatively hard for
> me:
> 1. Pull request are not merged
> 2. Many patches release 10 year ago are still not in master !
> 3. I don't see any automated build put in place for master. I recently
> build a CICD pipeline on my own to fix a bug on Windows.
> https://git.patrikdufresne.com/pdsl/rdiff-backup-build

> From my understanding sol1 was taking the maintainer-ship of the project,
> they have done some preliminary work, but nothing serious in term of
> release or pull request. Which is a bit disappointing.

> If we plan to have yet another maintainer, I would love if we can avoid
> making the same mistake again. rdiff-backup is an opensource project and
> many people from various companies (including mine) have insensitive to
> work on it. People are coming and leaving relatively fast and moving
> everything to a different repository every time doesnt' seams to be the
> solution. I would recommend to create a new repository which is not related
> to any companies. Let name it "rdiff-backup". So basically, something
> acessible from https://github.com/rdiff-backup/rdiff-backup or similar. And
> let have people from various place be the maintainers with a code review
> process or something similar.
> That should allow everyone to have a relatively stable place where to look
> for the rdiff-backup source code instead of guessing the branches as of
> today.

> Would also love to see the website taken down and migrated to github wiki
> or github pages.

> As of now, I'm relatively busy working on Minarca and rdifweb. I have no
> time to work on rdiff-backup but I will soon turn my attention on it.

> Before moving forward with this, I would appreciate to have feedback from
> sol1. After all they are the maintainer today.

> --
> Patrik Dufresne Service Logiciel inc.
> http://www.patrikdufresne.com <http://patrikdufresne.com/>/
> 514-971-6442
> 130 rue Doris
> St-Colomban, QC J5K 1T9

> On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 1:10 PM Dale E. Qualls <address@hidden> wrote:

> > Agreed and "starred".






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> > From: rdiff-backup-users [mailto:rdiff-backup-users-bounces+deq=
> > address@hidden] On Behalf Of Dominic Raferd
> > Sent: Friday, July 26, 2019 12:06 PM
> > To: address@hidden
> > Subject: Re: [rdiff-backup-users] Future of rdiff-backup: Python 3
> > migration and project maintainership in general


> > External email, exercise caution.



> > On Fri, 26 Jul 2019, 17:37 Otto Kekäläinen, <address@hidden> wrote:

> > > Hello!

> > > There has not been any new releases of rdiff-backup since 2009. If the
> > > original maintainer does not intend to work on this project, could I
> > > please be allowed to take over?

> > > I am a Debian Developer and active in multiple open source projects.
> > > Our company supports many open source projects (seravo.com/opensource<
> > http://seravo.com/opensource>)
> > > and since we also use rdiff-backup, I could get some funding and man
> > > power to for example complete the Python3 migration. I know Python
> > > well and have recently contributed Python code to AppArmor upstream,
> > > so I think I am technically competent. With 20 years of open source
> > > experience I believe I can be a good steward this project.

> > > Rdiff-backup is marked for autoremoval from Debian on August 8th. I
> > > hope we could get some responses and activity on this soon so I have a
> > > chance to save rdiff-backup in Debian.
> > > https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/rdiff-backup<
> > https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/rdiff-backup>

> > > That do you think?

> > > If you are in favor of this please let me know by starring
> > > https://github.com/Seravo/rdiff-backup<
> > https://github.com/Seravo/rdiff-backup>

> > > If I get more than 5 stars I will begin the Python 3 migration and
> > > also pulling in the best commits from the existing forks that have had
> > > most activity:
> > > - https://github.com/ericzolf/rdiff-backup<
> > https://github.com/ericzolf/rdiff-backup>
> > > - https://github.com/ardovm/rdiff-backup<
> > https://github.com/ardovm/rdiff-backup>
> > > - https://github.com/hosting90/rdiff-backup<
> > https://github.com/hosting90/rdiff-backup>
> > > - https://github.com/orangenschalen/rdiff-backup<
> > https://github.com/orangenschalen/rdiff-backup>
> > > (see https://github.com/sol1/rdiff-backup/network<
> > https://github.com/sol1/rdiff-backup/network>)


> > > - Otto


> > Sounds great to me. Rdiff- backup remains a really useful tool so I would
> > welcome it being given a new lease of life.


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