Is this project officially dead, or what???

[Josh Linn]

Not to gripe but, is this thing dead?  I could find agileco's web site and some mention about "how much potential agilebill bla bla bla" scattered here and there but that's about it.  Are you aware that all of the links to project wiki/download/etc are dead?  I managed to find a trunk on sourceforge and had no luck installing.  It took me two weeks to find this group!!  So, am I wasting my time here?

Thank you.

Josh

[Nathan Simmons]

to be honest i think its dead without the download as i was going to download it and customize it for our new part of our company but unable to find anything.

Josh

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Nathan Simmons
Microsoft Certified Professional
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[Josh Linn]

Well, thanks for the reply.  Sorry, wasn't sourceforge, I found this repo on github: https://github.com/njdcamilli/agilebill

[sluther]

On Mar 15, 1:16 pm, Nathan Simmons <simmons...@gmail.com> wrote:
> to be honest i think its dead without the download as i was going to
> download it and customize it for our new part of our company but unable to
> find anything.

You had emailed me, and I had emailed you a link to my repository on
Github, so I'm not sure why you're saying you were unable to find
anything...

Anyways, my repository is still on Github and available. I'd suggest
you guys use mine, since I've made updates within the last 3 years
(unlike the other one that was linked). ;)

https://github.com/sluther/agilebill

[sluther]

I'd also like to add mention that I'm still the official maintainer.
I'm not sure what happened to Tony's account on Github, but it appears
to have been deleted. I also do not have any access to the website,
unfortunately, so I can't update the links on it. In any case, if you
guys find any bugs, let me know and I'll see what I can do about
patching them.

I'm also available for consultation regarding this project if needed.

[Nathan Simmons]

Hi,

I never got the email back may of been a slight issue with me not seing it as i do see alot of email.

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[Kage]

I'm glad this project isn't dead.  It'd be really nice of we could make AgileBill compete with OpenX with respect to serving ads.  That, I think, would open a huge market for this project.

Anyone interested?

Sent from my HTC

[sluther]

Hi Kage,

Unfortunately, I'm not too interested in developing new features for
the project at this point. I'd rather spend that time working on the
new version, which is close to being ready for a beta release, but I
haven't had much time to work on it since January.

My aim with the new version is to implement as much functionality as
possible from the old version, though I have a whole slew of new
features I've been working on. One of the goals of the new version is
to be much more developer friendly than the previous one. To that end,
it should be pretty simple to develop the features you've requested
for the new version, and it should take less time than it would have
with the old one.

If you're interested at all in this idea, shoot me an email and we can
discuss it further.

[Kage]

That would be awesome, since my developers and I tried to add said functionality to the prior codebase and it proved exceedingly difficult.  I do hope no features of the current codebase are lost, since it's incredibly versatile as it stands.

I wouldn't mind offering some help where I can, but do understand my primary goal is a advertisement payment gateway.  It sucks having to run agile and openx separately since all payment solutions for openx are exceedingly expensive or just plain suck.

Sent from my HTC

----- Reply message -----
From: "sluther" <neena...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 15, 2012 5:56 pm
Subject: [agilebilloss] Re: Is this project officially dead, or what???
To: "AgileBill OSS Billing" <agileb...@googlegroups.com>

[Nathan Simmons]

Have you got any screenshoots of the new version of the software?

[sluther]

On Mar 15, 3:16 pm, "Kage" <kagekon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> That would be awesome, since my developers and I tried to add said functionality to the prior codebase and it proved exceedingly difficult. I do hope no features of the current codebase are lost, since it's incredibly versatile as it stands.
>
> I wouldn't mind offering some help where I can, but do understand my primary goal is a advertisement payment gateway. It sucks having to run agile and openx separately since all payment solutions for openx are exceedingly expensive or just plain suck.
>
> Sent from my HTC

I can imagine. The old version wasn't exactly developer friendly,
though it wasn't really ever intended or aimed at "developers." The
current version I'm working on is built on a developer-centric
framework - it's all about the developer. It supports easily adding
new functionality, and we've been hard at work writing documentation
for developers lately.

Feature-wise, there are several new features I have planned. One of
the things I aim to do in the new version is introduce accounting-
style billing. I have the majority of this already done. In addition,
right now, I have a PayPal payment gateway going, and the code to
support any number of gateways has already been completed.
Realistically, the only things left to finish are the design
(frontend, for customers) and finishing up recurring billing, and the
website itself, and then we'd be ready for beta. I plan to add
provisioning, affiliates, etc into the mix later. We also have plans
for white-label affiliates where an affiliate can completely redesign
the templates for their portal from scratch (and even host their
portal on their own website).

On Mar 15, 3:26 pm, Nathan Simmons <simmons...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Have you got any screenshoots of the new version of the software?

I don't at the moment. A lot of work needs to be done to finish up the
customer interface. I can tell you that we have a very customized
version of the application running already, and it's been working
extremely well for the people who are using it, but the customer
interface was built specifically for them and we haven't had a chance
to implement a generic one yet.

A large part of the issue is that neither of us have had much time to
work on it lately. We both have full-time jobs right now, and very
limited free time as we also have other projects going on. I could
justify taking time off of work if I could find someone who would be
willing to fund it, and I actually have a few people interested in
doing just that, but neither one of them is ready to move forward yet.
Realistically speaking, I'd say we're about 10-20 hours away from a
beta version at this point.

[Kage]

When you say "white-label affiliate," do you mean the billing system is hosted by you and not open source?  The definition you gave is a little ambiguous.  Can you clarify, please?

Sent from my HTC

----- Reply message -----
From: "sluther" <neena...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 15, 2012 6:54 pm
Subject: [agilebilloss] Re: Is this project officially dead, or what???
To: "AgileBill OSS Billing" <agileb...@googlegroups.com>

[sluther]

On Mar 15, 4:21 pm, "Kage" <kagekon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> When you say "white-label affiliate," do you mean the billing system is hosted by you and not open source?  The definition you gave is a little ambiguous.  Can you clarify, please?
>

No. The idea would be that someone who is using the software would be
able to setup resellers/affiliates, and there would be an ability to
have a white-label option so the reseller or affiliate could deploy a
portal on their own website that has been completely customized.

That being said, I'm not sure what license the software will be
released under at this point, but I anticipate it becoming a
"commercial open source" project. I'd probably do something along the
lines of "Freemium"

[Donna Camilli]

Hi Scott,

I am still using Agilebill, for almost ten years now. I am glad you are
keeping it going. You did my upgrade for me with the open source version.
Just FYI attached is the /modules/core/ssl.inc.php that my coder had to fix
after my checkout plugin (authorize.net) stopped working. It was after
Bluehost upgraded their servers to CentOS6. Anyway it works now. It had
something to do with Curl or Fsocket or something.

Sincerely,

Donna Camilli, President
The Wise DC, Inc.
www.TheWiseDC.com
856-455-7703

----- Original Message -----
From: "sluther" <neena...@gmail.com>
To: "AgileBill OSS Billing" <agileb...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2012 6:54 PM
Subject: [agilebilloss] Re: Is this project officially dead, or what???

--

[sluther]

On Mar 15, 4:37 pm, "Donna Camilli" <donna.cami...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Scott,
>
> I am still using Agilebill, for almost ten years now. I am glad you are
> keeping it going. You did my upgrade for me with the open source version.
> Just FYI attached is the /modules/core/ssl.inc.php that my coder had to fix
> after my checkout plugin (authorize.net) stopped working. It was after
> Bluehost upgraded their servers to CentOS6. Anyway it works now. It had
> something to do with Curl or Fsocket or something.

Hi Donna,

I remember you! Thanks for the updated file, I'll take a look to make
sure it won't break anything for anyone not using CentOS6 (I try to
stay away from CentOS because they tend to fall very behind with
updates).

[Kage]

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. Also, might I suggest an MIT license?

Sent from my HTC

----- Reply message -----
From: "sluther" <neena...@gmail.com>

Date: Thu, Mar 15, 2012 7:30 pm
Subject: [agilebilloss] Re: Is this project officially dead, or what???
To: "AgileBill OSS Billing" <agileb...@googlegroups.com>

[Kage]

Did Tony grant rights to use the Agile name, or is this project under a new name?

Sent from my HTC

----- Reply message -----
From: "sluther" <neena...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 15, 2012 7:44 pm
Subject: [agilebilloss] Re: Is this project officially dead, or what???
To: "AgileBill OSS Billing" <agileb...@googlegroups.com>

[sluther]

On Mar 15, 5:22 pm, "Kage" <kagekon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. Also, might I suggest an MIT license?

The MIT license doesn't really fit with what I'm trying to accomplish,
unfortunately. Something along the lines of the Devblocks Public
License (http://cerb5.com/license) are what I'm aiming for. Like I
said, my plan is to make this a commercial open source project. Ie: I
will be selling licenses for the software, but it will not be
obfuscated in any way. It's possible that the source code itself will
be released to the public for free, but at this point I don't really
want to make a decision since I still don't know how much time it will
be before it's released, etc. It just seems a bit silly to plan out
what the license will be before the software is even ready.

On Mar 15, 5:28 pm, "Kage" <kagekon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Did Tony grant rights to use the Agile name, or is this project under a new name?

No, I don't have the rights to use AgileBill. The project will be
released under a new name.

[Alex Solomotis]

And my needs are solely for a hosting environment. It would be very hard and time consuming for Scott to deal with all the various version people would want. But if the code is simplified and possibly modularized then maybe building a module for a specific need my not be too difficult. Kinda like a CMS. I've used Xoops frequently for projects. They have various modules for different purposes, you just add or remove what you  want.

Alex

[sluther]

On Mar 15, 7:35 pm, Alex Solomotis <al...@soloinc.com> wrote:
> And my needs are solely for a hosting environment. It would be very hard and time consuming for Scott to deal with all the various version people would want. But if the code is simplified and possibly modularized then maybe building a module for a specific need my not be too difficult. Kinda like a CMS. I've used Xoops frequently for projects. They have various modules for different purposes, you just add or remove what you  want.
>
> Alex

You've hit the nail on the head here, Alex. That's precisely my goal
with the new version, though I do plan to implement hosting plugins,
etc, my main focus is on a more abstract system which will allow any
developer to easily hook in and add new provisioning options for just
about anything. Every piece will function just like the gateways do
right now. The framework I'm using (along with my code) allows any
developer to register a new gateway plugin, and their gateway plugin
has the ability to display any kind of configuration options they want
in a unified interface.

The documentation work I've been doing lately will actually help a lot
when it comes time to actually get this software out, since a lot of
the documentation I'm doing will be usable by developers for this
software as well (I'm doing developer-centric documentation for the
framework/platform right now).

Random bit of trivia: I started writing code for this project a little
over a year ago (mostly proof-of-concept/spike-testing type stuff), I
started working on the actual app in October, and I've been sitting on
mostly working code since December.

Depending on interest (and how much time I have) I'd consider some
kind of closed beta for you guys, so you can see the source code, etc.

[Kage]

Just throwing my two cents in on the whole licensing thing..

I strongly feel this software should remain fully open source.  The sole reason I and many others flocked to Agile was due to it being open source.  It allowed me and others to freely use the code without prohibitive restrictions or fees.

I personally would love to see an amazing free and open source alternative to WHM and others.  Agile would've been there had development not died off (and had it been easier to develop on).

Indeed, perhaps one way would be to require licensing once the client count exceeds X.  Many software do this, and it's quite the effective business model while still retaining open source qualities.

And, debating the licensing before the product is finished is a very good idea.  What if someone wishes to use library X, then the project much later pots for a license that conflicts with library X's.  Licensing is a dirty pile, but it really ought to ne done early on to save headaches.

Sent from my HTC

----- Reply message -----
From: "sluther" <neena...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 15, 2012 9:26 pm
Subject: [agilebilloss] Re: Is this project officially dead, or what???
To: "AgileBill OSS Billing" <agileb...@googlegroups.com>

[sluther]

Hi Kage,

It's important to note that, originally, AgileBill wasn't open source.
It started out as commercial software that ended up being released as
open source many years later.

As far as licensing goes, there aren't really many libraries we need.
All of the libraries that are being used so far are already compatible
with the license I'm going for. Anything else could easily be
developed as a plugin under a different license if necessary, so I'm
not really too worried about conflicting licenses.

I'm certainly interested in a model like that, though, where there's a
free version up to a certain number of clients. Regardless, my goal is
to allow the source code to be downloaded free of charge; you'd
potentially need to buy a license to use it (or modify the code to
circumvent the licensing). I know there are pirates/hackers out there,
but for the most part, I think that the majority of people who would
be interested in the software would be perfectly willing to pay to use
it.

Here's a little snippet from the software the company I work for sells
(I fully agree with all of it). Maybe it will help put things into
perspective better:

"* Sure, it would be so easy to just cheat and edit this file to use
the
* software without paying for it. But we trust you anyway. In fact,
we're
* writing this software for you!
*
* Quality software backed by a dedicated team takes money to
develop. We
* don't want to be out of the office bagging groceries when you call
up
* needing a helping hand. We'd rather spend our free time coding
your
* feature requests than mowing the neighbors' lawns for rent money.
*
* We've never believed in hiding our source code out of paranoia over
not
* getting paid. We want you to have the full source code and be able
to
* make the tweaks your organization requires to get more done --
despite
* having less of everything than you might need (time, people,
money,
* energy). We shouldn't be your bottleneck."

[Tony Landis]

Hi Scott, I hope you are doing well these days.

I sincerely wish you the best of luck with your project in whatever form of licensing you opt to make it available.

As you have made it clear publicly that it your own venture and totally unrelated to the AB OSS project and you are not interested in maintaining AB, I would hope you will respect this request to not use the AB OSS group for future promotional/market research. It is simply not productive in any way for the scope of this group.

Best Regards,

Tony

[Tony Landis]

I am not sure what happened to my Agilebill repo on github. I am worried that it may have been compromised/deleted as a result of Github's recent security vulnerabilities (http://www.infoq.com/news/2012/03/GitHub-Compromised) and have contacted them. I am going to get it back up and will report back here once it is restored.

A lot has changed since AB was first released back in 2004. It was developed to be very general purpose, and as a result most users only ever needed a subset of its features. In the interm, lots of services have popped which I assume are do a good job of providing limited functionality for these use cases.

So trying to re-create something as broad as AB in it's current form would not make sense, and the same goes for trying to maintain every feature that was initially baked in. Limiting the scope of focus drastically and determining actual use cases would be

So I am very curious to hear some specific use cases AB is being used for, considered for, and what are unsupported cases there are interest for?

Best,

Tony

[Nathan Simmons]

Im going to be using AgilieBill for my new aspect of our IT company to offer broadband to our customers later on down the road.

Once we have found a coder who would be happy to assist me for creating customised order forms and backend to start the process of setting up the broadband accounts then that would be great.

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[sluther]

Hi Tony,

I'm doing great these days, though I've been really busy!

I actually plan to continue maintaining AB with bugfixes, but nobody
has reported any in a while. I'm still willing to provide support for
it for the few people who are using it. If I have some time I'd still
like to finish replacing the ereg* functions with their preg*
equivalents, but it was a fairly daunting/tedious task.

As far as my own project, I understand and respect your wishes, and
I'll refrain from discussing it any further on this group.

[Tony Landis]

Scott, good to hear you are doing well. I may have mistaken the
meaning of one of your earlier messages, no hard feelings for sure.

Yes, updating some of the PHP calls that are being depreciated would
be great. It would be pretty tedious as the calls are not that uniform
throughout.

The main github repo has re-appeared, here is the link
https://github.com/tony-landis/agilebill

Best,
Tony