Issue 261 in shellinabox: Willing to Take Over Maintenance

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Status: New
Owner: ----
Labels: Type-Defect Priority-Medium

New issue 261 by qbr...@gmail.com: Willing to Take Over Maintenance
http://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

I would like to assist with or take over maintenance of this project.
Shellinabox is by far the easiest to administer and use browser-based shell
in my opinion, and I see from the commits in the issue log that many others
still find it valuable as well.

I have been working on the issues and feature requests that are important
to me personally. Now I would like to start supporting the project for
everyone else that finds it useful.

Unfortunately all project members have hidden email addresses and the
project email group is locked, so this is the only way I have of
potentially contacting the project owner. I would like to commit here, but
if that cannot be worked out I will take a fork.

Thank you.

--
You received this message because this project is configured to send all
issue notifications to this address.
You may adjust your notification preferences at:
https://code.google.com/hosting/settings

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #1 on issue 261 by ja...@theallens.id.au: Willing to Take Over
Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

Where you able to contact someone or did you fork?

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #2 on issue 261 by sp...@spali.ch: Willing to Take Over Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

I did see you forked already.
It seems that more than you tries to fix some stuff... maybe we should
somewhere merge all fixes together.
If you search for shellinabox on github, you can find some projects that
did at least some small fixes.
To avoid growing all the dedicated clones without any link, forking the
github project with the most forks would make sense to me. Then adapt all
your changes there.
I can start over with that, but the problem is, I'm not into coding C what
should be a requirement for the new maintainer in my eyes.
I started to create a dockerfile for a container with some options to
deploy it fast with some of the most scenarios.. like acting as ssh gateway
to the docker host or just as a "dummy" linux box. Thats what I would like
to contribute then for the project.

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #3 on issue 261 by sp...@spali.ch: Willing to Take Over Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

sorry for being bit off-topic, but someone that is interested I the future
maintenance could have some interest in it. I made a Dockerfile with some
options. Good for testing and also to have a fast up and running
shellinabox.
https://github.com/spali/docker-shellinabox
still need some work, especially ssl does not work for now, but it works
and for ssl currently a reverse proxy could be used.

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #4 on issue 261 by luka.kra...@gmail.com: Willing to Take Over
Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

Hi,

I am also interested in doing something like that ...

Problem is that alot of Github forks are almost dead. We should create new
fork
and we should allow more people to manage this project so the project would
not
be dependent on only one developer.

Probably it would be the best to create new fork on Github from here and
merge all
existing fixes. So that we won't break project history and all issues will
be
traceble ...

Personaly I have a intentions to integrate shellinabox in my own project so
I have
some time for this during my work hours :)

I have some C knowledge, and I also created some forks on github but I will
probably
delete them, because they don't have proper project history.

https://github.com/KLuka/shellinabox
https://github.com/KLuka/shellinabox_fork/

Please tell me what do you think about this idea and if you would be
willing to
collaborate with me?

Bye :)

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #5 on issue 261 by sp...@spali.ch: Willing to Take Over Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

I would suggest to just create a non personal git hub repo. Then import the
complete svn history. Also i would recommend to import the issues to and
sort it then out later for dublicates etc.
Don't know about the ethics about how to overtake this project. Is a rename
required or something else? It's really a bummer we can't get any contact
to the original developer. Would be much cleaner to have a message here
which redirects to the new github project. Also to prevent new issues here
and to avoid confusions.
Is there any possibility to contact the owner via Google?

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #6 on issue 261 by sp...@spali.ch: Willing to Take Over Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

just found some additional information..
I knew already, there is a debian package which has last changes in the
changelog also at 2012: https://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shellinabox.html

But in the change log, there are some mail changes visible of mark singer
(not sure if he is also the project owner here, but maybe he knows
something).
There is also a domain referred as homepage, which redirects to this google
code project. But maybe the owner has also some information or could help.

Another thing we have to bear in mind, on google code there are also some
forks (2 with commits) which should be considered, not only the github
forks.

So this would give maybe a bit more work, because I think without a clean
takeover, tje project runs a risk of getting under the hood with all these
distributed forks around there and fixes there and here.

for the issues there seems to be a some reasonable ways, on
http://beets.radbox.org/blog/github-issues.html is a good blog with a issue
converter hosted on github and here is another converter
https://code.google.com/p/support-tools/wiki/IssueExporterTool.

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #7 on issue 261 by sp...@spali.ch: Willing to Take Over Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

Maybe also interesting: https://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/FAQ
read the question:
What should I do if I wish to take over a project that appears abandoned by
its owners?

Sorry for spamming you guys here :) but I really hope this project can
resurrect. But now I have to take my flight to holiday... don't worry, I
try to keep me up to date with this issue :)

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #8 on issue 261 by luka.kra...@gmail.com: Willing to Take Over
Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

Hi,

it's nice to see that someone is spamming this thread :)

And it really is a shame that we can't contact project owners :/

So, for now I have created "shellinabox" organization with "shellinabox"
project
on Github and I will add anyone from this thread who wishes to be
repository maintainer.

https://github.com/shellinabox/shellinabox

@spali: your Github account was already invited to organization, hope that
is OK :)

It is also important that this new repository will be visible and will show
up on
searches. So that people who are looking for latest updates and issues will
find
it easily.

From legal point of view I think that this is not a problem. If anyone
thinks
otherwise or has some other problems please tell me/us. If this really is a
problem
we could delete this fork. Although I don't think that this
fork/organisation is any
different from other github forks ...

So in this week I will try to import some stable code with complete
history. I will
also try to import issues from here as you suggested.

Do you have any suggestions on which fork do we want to use for our
starting point?

After that we will try to gather all existing patches and so on ... :)

Have a nice vacation ;)

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #9 on issue 261 by sp...@spali.ch: Willing to Take Over Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

Thats great, still would suggest to try to contact the owner or maybe the
debian package maintainer.
I think at least a reference from here to the github organization would be
great, also the package maintainer of the debian package would switch to
the new project.

As a starting point, I would suggest the original repo and try to merge as
many as possible fixes around the forks. Maybe as branches in the new repo
to sort them out later or to associate them to an existing issue.
I would also suggest to use any of the free build CI's aut there so we can
automatically build all push requests before it will be integrated into the
master. I know some, but don't know which are preferred for C applications.

As soon as I have a good starting version of the docker project, I can
move it to the new organization.

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #10 on issue 261 by luka.kra...@gmail.com: Willing to Take Over
Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

Hi :)

clone of this repository was created
(https://github.com/shellinabox/shellinabox) and I started
to import issues...

Just for info I used google-code-issues-migrator, and it is actually pretty
simple :) You just have
to take it slow because github has a limit for spamming issues :)

https://github.com/arthur-debert/google-code-issues-migrator

I will contact the project owner and Debian package maintainer and let them
know what are
we doing here and to give us any thoughts on this :). Also I will try to
contact Google Code
staff to see if they can at least put up a link to Github project on the
front page or something
like that ...

As for the CI ... I don't have any experience with this kind of stuff :) I
will check it out but I
need some more time. It would be great if you would have some time and
setup something at least for
the start.

But for now I think that it is safe to start applying existing patches from
here which are already
tested. So that will be my next step :)

Regards, Luka

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #11 on issue 261 by sp...@spali.ch: Willing to Take Over Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

Thats fine, i will check it out and try to setup something. Just can't
promise anything during holiday, my wife won't be amused :)
Beside of this you should think about how you plan to develop. I would
suggest at least to develop always in a own fork, and do pull requests to
the project repo. So the project repo keeps as clean as possible. Optional
we can push to a dev branch for build tests and then after successful
builds we merge to the master. What do you think?
Also we should write this down on the wiki for other interested developers.
How ever you decide to develop and branch, just do it manually for now, and
I will check later for the build automation.

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #12 on issue 261 by sp...@spali.ch: Willing to Take Over Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

We should also at least tag the release 2.14 used by the current debian
package. But there we have to find out the codebase first.
Hope you can get the debian packager to our project, so we don't have to
start from scratch with that.

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #13 on issue 261 by luka.kra...@gmail.com: Willing to Take Over
Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

Hi,

yeah I was thinking the same about the 2.14 tag :) I think that this fork
was
used: https://github.com/pythonanywhere/shellinabox_fork/. But I am not so
sure,
I have to check.

And as you say I will use my own fork to develop on this project and than
we can
use dev branch for test builds. I have to tell you that I am quite new to
open
source and github, so I really appreciate your advice, thanks :)

Enjoy on your holiday, and don't worry about this project, it can wait :)

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #14 on issue 261 by luka.kra...@gmail.com: Willing to Take Over
Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

Hi, just a little update on https://github.com/shellinabox/shellinabox :)

1. Version 2.14 was tagged so now we are working on version 2.15 :)

2. I contacted original author of this project and debian package
maintainer.
This was 5 days ago and they still didn't respond. I hope that they will
respond
soon. But until then I think we should continue to work on our github fork
so
that they can latter merge our changes here. Or whatever they will decided
to do.

3. I applied many patches from issue threads, not all, but i think it is a
good start.

As far I could tell, from reported issues here, that there are a lot of
them related
to Firefox keyboard problems. I hope I finally applied correct patch :)

I would really appreciate, if someone could test and report back with some
other
keyboards. I tested German, Danish and Slovenian keyboards. For reference
one could
use terminal from project front page :)

4. I am trying to sort out imported issues. Because there are a lot of
duplicates and
some of issues are not valid or obsolete. I doesn't look good, if there are
too many
open issues on project :)

Ok, that is it for now :)

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #15 on issue 261 by alexandr...@gmail.com: Willing to Take Over
Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

Hi,

For Debian packaging, the official procedure is to contact the
MIA Team https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/MIA

> Hope you can get the debian packager to our project,
> so we don't have to start from scratch with that.

[start from scratch]
That doesn't work that way, as long as you reference previous packager in
debian/copyright; one can take over anyone else.

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #16 on issue 261 by luka.kra...@gmail.com: Willing to Take Over
Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

Hi Alexandre, and first of all thanks for the help on the new GitHub fork :)

Original owner of this project still didn't respond to my emails. But I
actually exchanged some emails with Debian package maintainer Marc Singer.
We discussed about releasing new version of deb package. Unfortunately he
went of the grid and I didn't hear anything from him in two months.

It would be really great if we could get new Debian release out as soon as
possible.

This are the major issues that are already fixed:
* Firefox international keyboard issues - this one is really urgent :) -
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/shellinabox
* SSL patches - also urgent :)
* MAC users keyboard issue
* IE11 issue
* iPad issues
* 256 color support

I see that you have experience with Debian stuff :) What do you think that
we should do?

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #17 on issue 261 by alexandr...@gmail.com: Willing to Take Over
Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

I've received an answer from Marc Singer yesterday.
In short: "I'm happy to push it into the repo." :-)

I had created this meta-bug to coordinate 2.15 release in a public way,
you can year the full thread there:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=785181

BTW, a line stating " * Closing release coordination metabug (Closes:
#785181 )" should be the added but this is some very low priority stuff not
worth a PR on it's own. This would close the bug when the new package
enters the archive.

> as soon as possible.

I agree, new features like a systemd .service files are not a priority and
can wait till a next release.

> experience with Debian stuff

well I'm not a Debian Developer nor Debian Maintainer yet, so for my
self-made package and the one I "adopted" after it was "orphaned" I need
that some D.D. "sponsor" (verify) my upload; if shellinabox wasn't already
in the archive you could go through the same way yourself.

But as SiaB is already in the archive there are 3 scenarios possible:
- either Marc upload it, that's the easiest & best solution !

- either if he *weren't* interrested anymore, he could orphan it; then
either you or I could adopt it and request a sponsor

- if there *were* no response at all, we'd need to convince some D.D. to
upload it;
this is called a "Non-Maintainer upload"; here as this is a SSL-using
package with a latent security risk this would have been probably ok; but
for other packages this could have been seen as an agressive hijacking...

Having many users helps also getting thing fixed and finding a sponsor:
https://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=shellinabox (+199 for
Ubuntu)

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #18 on issue 261 by luka.kra...@gmail.com: Willing to Take Over
Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

Ok, for now we take the simple approach and wait for Marc :) I hope he will
find some time soon...

Until than we continue fixing things on Github fork :)

[shell...@googlecode.com]

Comment #19 on issue 261 by rogerdp...@gmail.com: Willing to Take Over
Maintenance
https://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/issues/detail?id=261

Glad to see some new volunteers to help here.