TiDesktop, Kroll licensing / lack of Appcelerator support leaves TideSDK transition in question

[fairwinds]

I have continued interest in developing with the former TiDesktop code base and seeing improvements. While I have lower level knowledge of the code, a major barrier to committing any code or time to this has been licensing uncertainty. I raised this early as part of the TideSDK team so there could be a resolution. 

What is the issue?

Anyone who will have ever opened TiStudio even to evaluate will have accepted the terms of the license. Embedded in the TiStudio license is a particularly nasty clause that implicates the development of any open source code including Titianium Desktop and also Kroll which it relies upon. These are both liberally licensed under the Apache 2 License but the effect of the clause nullifies the effect of the open licenses and forces any code connected with the SDK or Kroll to be delivered back to Appcelerator. On this basis, there is no open license, nor developers familiar with Titanium that will be able to work with it (without the impact of the TiStudio license).

The particular clause in question is as follows:

"Accordingly, except as expressly permitted in this Agreement, Customer agrees not to and shall not allow any third party to: (g) modify any open source version of Appcelerator's software source code ("Original Code") to develop a separately maintained source code program ..."

I am at a loss as to how we move forward with the code base with this uncertainty. I was assured that this issue would be resolved months ago and that the clause and impact on the SDK's and Kroll was something in error. It is June and the code base is in need of fixes and sandboxing for OSX. It will certainly rot without development.

To be certain, I had also requested some type of minimal financial help from Appcelerator to help sponsor bounties for bug fixes and to encourage interest for hard core developers to explore the code base. Javascript knowledge, while helpful, is not sufficient to deal with the code base and we need developers strong in ObjC, c++, Java, Python, etc.

I am frustrated by another round of "Who will lead?". Personally, it will not matter if everyone were replaced, the problems remain the same. Appcelerator must step up to facilitate the transfer and offer meaningful assistance to nurture it until there is a solid group of dedicated committers working on the code base. We have a group of good people that have agreed to help in various forms. That said, we are in a crisis until we get the fundamental license issue behind us. A reasonable donation is needed to help kickstart for bug fixes and grow some interest in tackling the complex code. I am suggesting that Appcelerator donate a minimum of $25,000 USD to support our effort with the caveat that we evaluate the effect of the funds over a time period. This type of support may need to continue for a time. The team should also solicit donations to add to the available funds for this purpose.

I am first to admit, the team appeared fractured on a new code / old code path forward. At the simplest level, I remain interested in developing on the existing code base and wish to see the code base evolve and improve. Any effort to re-create the experience of TiDesktop in another code base is some distance down the road.

I had a chat with Kevin today. He remains aware of the licensing problem. I was verbally assured this would not be an issue to work on the code. This is not good enough, nor is a second round of soliciting interest. This is going nowhere without the support needed from Appcelerator. I have asked for a letter to resolve the legal issue so there is no doubt or legal implications to work with the code or to work with in on a lower level within your own codebase. This has to be resolved permanently and immediately. Beyond this, the minimal financial support for bounties would help stimulate and kickstart a bugfix release and the necessary OSX sandboxing required to make the code relevant. Lastly, there are bound to be technical issues. We also need to maintain an informal bridge between the open project and expertise in Appcelerator for a period of time.

Kevin advised that a larger general statement may be made soon and that he would make sure to get desktop code involved in the conversation. I am not sure that the user base will be waiting. In fact many have already declared TiDesktop dead and are seeking alternatives. Sencha is aware of this need obviously and plan to capitalize on the void created. This is really quite shameful. Appcelerator, the support needed has missed the mark. It can certainly be resolved and I encourage the measures discussed as a means of helping turn this situation around.

[Kevin Whinnery]

On the licensing issues, we are working on clarifying this language for all developers across the board.  We want to get this right, so we don't really have an ETA at this point on when the license clarifications will be issued, but we realize it's extremely important to resolve quickly.  However, let me reiterate that we don't have a hidden agenda to charge every person that's ever used Titanium, or to try and place restrictions on our Apache 2 codebases.  I realize and acknowledge that formal clarification is needed, and it is coming.

On the subject of support, there are things Appcelerator can do and have done to help.  We've given administrative JIRA access to members of the team.  We've offered to set up an office hours session with the members of the desktop team that remain.  If there are site hosting fees and other miscellaneous infrastructure expenses, we can look at funding those on a case by case basis.  We can facilitate getting very specific questions answered as best we can.

However, Appcelerator decided to focus our development efforts on the mobile codebase, and that's what we intend to do.  We're not able to take an active development leadership role in this project (as in providing formal knowledge transfer and training to project maintainers), and it's unlikely that we will allocate a budget for "bounties" on bugs in the codebase.  This is an open source project, and as such must be developed by people that have the necessary skills and motivation, provided by an itch they want to scratch.

I think there's a lot of positive potential in Desktop, but developers in the community that want to see the Desktop codebase continue will need to step up and:

1.) figure out how things work (with very minimal support and guidance)

2.) Establish a roadmap

3.) write code

Is that hard?  Yes, it certainly is.  But that's what needs to happen, and that's why personal motivation is necessary.  That's what community-driven open source projects are about.  Appcelerator can and must provide some guidance on the license terms, and can provide some material and moral support.  But Appcelerator can't provide leaders and coders for this project.  If someone (or ideally several someones) steps up and executes on the three things above, the project will move forward and is likely to attract users and a community.  If not, it won't.  We can point fingers and place blame however we want, but that doesn't change what needs to happen.  Waiting on someone else (or worse, feeling like someone owes you free code) is a path that leads nowhere.  

-Kevin

--

Kevin Whinnery

Director of Developer Relations

Appcelerator, Inc.

 

kwhi...@appcelerator.com

Mobile: (651) 208-0532

Skype: kevin.whinnery

http://www.appcelerator.com

 

Appcelerator Inc.

The Next Generation Mobile Platform

[fairwinds]

Hi Kevin. I have a reasonable understanding of the code and wish to get started. I cannot do this without licensing certainty. This should have been resolved months ago when it was raised. At this point the transition is in crisis and loosing momentum. I have asked that a letter be drafted in the interim to clarify the license to allow work to proceed. You seem to suggest that folks are not stepping up. I have been willing to work on this for three months. If there is no hidden agenda, you will provide what has been requested.

There is no doubt, there is appreciation for any support that can be given. I fully understand the position of Appcelerator to focus on mobile, but also believe that where there is a large complex codebase, some seeds are needed to help with the transition. I have neve suggesting that anyone from Appcelerator ought to lead the project or that there be any sort of long term commitment to a bounty program. The bounties would be administered by the existing team (not Appcelerator) with the technical leads determined by the team.

I am suggesting that your company has become very large and successul as a result of the community and believe when a request such as this comes forward for a donation to see code the community would like to see maintained, it should be given attention. It should be considered a positive, relationship building exercise in give and take, and you can use this gesture in you own promotion for more paying customers.

I won't dignify an answer to the remainder of your message as the tone suggests there are not people that have identified interest or time to consider the future of the code base or to code. There are people available, we have folks on a leadership team, we have a short term goal to maintain the existing code base and made progress on considering some new possibilities for future in parallel. If I hear anything more about stepping up when Appcelerator has not resolved the most basic licensing issue so that developers can code without this over their head, I will pull my hair out. This does nothing to foster a positive relationship with developers as the code rots away. Further, this is only something Appcelerator can do. There is no blame game here. Who will work with the code on this basis? Please just get it resolved!

I have asked for three things in plain english to facilitate the transition, no more:

1. Fix the license issue so that developers can be comfortable to code without putting their work in jeopardy

2. Offer a donation to the TideSDK team to support bounties to encourage hard core developers to fix bugs and get involved in the code base

3. Remain open informally to communication on builds and on the code base until roots are established with a core of developers.

Lastly, be helpful. This kind of dialog hurts developer relations. I believe the majority of developers polled would suggest they want to have a desktop option. Respect and cooperation from Appcelerator are halmarks of something we want in this relationship. Please step us as a company and resource.

Regards,

David

[Kevin Whinnery]

I think the intent on the licensing of the Desktop codebase is clear, but I understand and accept the need to get explicit legal clearance to work on the codebase, in light of license agreements applied to other products made by Appcelerator.  I've stated our intents and plans repeatedly on this front, and we hope to remove this impediment soon.   

However, one needs to ask if that is truly the primary reason that significant technical progress has not been made on Desktop.  If we are honest with ourselves, I don't think that's the main reason - it might be for some, but as a community let's not hide behind that as an excuse.  I think that we haven't seen a lot of technical progress because:

- People have lives and jobs

- Learning a huge codebase with minimal guidance is hard

- Creating momentum and project leadership is hard

It's going to take motivated individuals (either by business need or personal passion) to overcome those hurdles.  It's hard to make that commitment, I don't fault anyone for not doing it (or doing more than they already have).  But any open source project that's viable needs to cross that business need/motivation threshold.

I realize my wording here is strong and even argumentative, but I think that pretending it's Appcelerator's fault that progress is slow is 1.) not accurate and 2.) not productive.  We would all be doing this group a disservice, and give ourselves an "easy out", if we allowed ourselves to believe that lack of support from Appcelerator is the choking bottleneck for progress.  

Appcelerator is doing a few small things to support the project.  We have already extended the offer to do an office hours session with interested developers with a former core desktop team member from Appcelerator.  We acknowledge the need to provide bulletproof legal clearance to work on the codebase, and will do so ASAP.  We could do more financially, and might be happy to get creative about supporting this project in certain ways, if we see a clear benefit that can be realized.  Project hosting, web hosting, domain names, issue tracking, mailing lists, wiki - those are costs of doing business we can potentially help out with so that contributors are not out of pocket.

But what we can't provide is drive, dedicated engineering resources, and technical leadership.  If you ask me, that is the bottleneck right now.  If we had lots of forks, commits going in, docs being written, new wikis forming, plans being laid, issues being triaged, technical chatter going on in a mailing list or forum, etc. etc. Appcelerator's legal and financial support might be the bottleneck in that case.  But that's not what we're seeing.

As an Appcelerator employee, you might assume I am trying to get us "off the hook".  But if you look at the situation logically and truthfully, I think you'll see where I'm coming from.  I also realize this may be read as me being a jerk and calling people on this list lazy.  That is not my intent, and I am genuinely happy so many people remain interested in Desktop.  I applaud peoples' willingness to help in small ways (or large ways, on their terms).  My intent is to make sure we don't give in to easy excuses, and we understand the real challenges in front of this project. 

-Kevin

[fairwinds]

Kevin this is a lot of words for saying the following:

1. We don't have the legal issue resolved and don't know when

2. We will not donate to kick start the transition to encourage open development on bug fixes and sandboxing (unless we see a clear benefit for Appcelerator).

3. We may offer some time office with a former developer (to help address your third point)

4. We would rather be argumentative and debate the commitment, skills and progress of folks that wish to see the code survive on an open basis.

I have identified ingredients necessary to see this thing move forward. They must come together, not separately and very soon. Not maybe legal issue on indeterminate time line, we wait and see about anything resembling financial help and we could do this or that perhaps at some point. There is nothing concrete in any of this and you have handed our group a certain recipe for failure on this basis.

Unresolved, the legal issue means folks will not touch code or commit. Second, what specifically is benefit to you? Is it not enough of a benefit to give something back to community in form of donation after years of reaping fees for this? 

This is not meaningful support. I trusted you would act on the legal issue months ago when raised at the outset. You said it would be taken care and for me this is a barrier to doing anything. I don't think fair to talk to me about if we are honest with ourselves. This only generates bad feelings. I do what I say and say what I mean. If legal issue acted on, it would be entering our conversation at this time.

[fairwinds]

Last sentence should read " If legal issue acted on, it would be NOT be entering our conversation at this time."

[Sharry]

Hi all, I agree with both of you guys. I am upset that Appcelerator dropped the Ti Desktop platform for numerous reasons, the whole legal aspect has to be put in writing. Kevin is looking into that, he has been very supportive towards us over the last few months & has offered the help out with financial costs of maintaining the site (even though they don't have to do this for us) & is willing to put us in touch with the old desktop developers. 

As we all know our time is precious, I know this all to well as I am on the TideSDK leadership team (marketing) & feel like I haven't really contributed to the project. I forked the existing AppC repository, paid for the domains, Wordpress themes & put in all the minutes of the meetings of the board on the site. I will admit the board involvement has died down exponentially over the last 2 months though. 

I tried to get the community involved by creating a logo competition for TideSDK but not 1 person entered, instead all we have get is 'is this ready yet', 'add node' etc. This is not done  overnight people & we are all doing this is our own FREE time! The repository is there to be forked, if you want to add the features - by all means go ahead, please contribute to the community project guys. 

Rant over. 

Regards

Sharry

[Micheal Cottingham]

I'd love to contribute, but I lack the time to take on yet another project, and my experience is in PHP and Python, not C++. For me, I don't really care about a logo, I want to see code. I don't see what's wrong with the current logo, to be honest. I'll fork the repo and see if I can contribute any pull requests, but my severe lack of personal time limits my contributions to much of anything right now.

[Alain Ekambi]

I  remember someone talking about releasing TiDesk as it is right now but with new name (similary to what Apache Flex is doing).  That sounds pretty good to me.

2012/6/7 Micheal Cottingham <mpcott...@gmail.com>

[David Pratt]

Sharry. Hi. Yes. I believe we started on the right foot with the
possibilities we saw before us to do something positive. That said we
are at a critical point. We assembled a group with the right
motivation to move forward and soon fractured along some parallel
direction where a group would work with the old code base, while
another explored possibilities with node integration. The legal issue
has not been lost on me. I brought it up early in our discussions and
it needs to be resolved before I get involved in the code. I have
lower level knowledge of the SDKs and have spent considerable time
studying the code. It has not been lost on me the volume and
complexity of the code. In order to attract hard core developers I
make a request for a donation to post bounties to accelerate the bug
fixes and move to sandbox the code so that applications can continue
to receive approval through Apple's AppStore. The TiDesktop code base
requires time and a depth of understanding. As a result, I concluded
the three areas of critical support needed from Appcelerator:

1. Fix the critical license issue
2. Obtain a donation. Appcelerator can demonstrate its commitment to
the success of the transition and the community so that we may use
these funds to attract development by posting bounties.
3. That there be a informal commitment for some support for the
developers involved in transferring some knowledge.

Thus far, I see we have some commitment only to the #3 that does not
seem firm. We need these things all at once to succeed. I think I
originally had a sense, we were going to obtain some support for the
transition. Without the legal thing, we are still at square 1. I think
Kevin was biased in suggesting to the team a movement in a completely
different direction with the code. This tended to shift focus on
discussion of new code than an analysis of what would be needed to
maintain the old. This is where I am coming from at this point. It is
well and good to offer tokens of support but in a realistic sense the
kind of short term support must be more substantial.

At best I feel we were given mixed signals. We cannot even get a
letter from Appcelerator to put the legal issue to rest for the
development to proceed unencumbered. There is no movement on a
donation unless Appcelerator first identifies a clear benefit for
themselves before doing anything positive to foster a community
effort. Lastly, while Kevin cries step up, he is alienating the good
folks that identified themselves to help. Fortunately, I have had some
folks contact me directly as a result of the controversy identifying
their support. I feel if Appcelerator could do their part, I would be
willing to get moving on some things and I could recruit the help
needed for the work. We don't need a big organization and all the
meetings. Is as simple as an irc channel, a code base, some financial
support to get going, legal certainty, someone available from
Appcelerator to offer some clarity if asked about some aspect of code
or build processes. From this we can use JIRA to handle some critical
bugs and get ball rolling. If folks saw a release of any kind at this
stage, it would signal some life to project and we would be back on
track.

While I have interest is some of the ideas expressed in new code, I
have suggested this go on in some experimental form to first
demonstrate viability of the ideas while we continue with the existing
code base.

I would encourage you to write an article and post about the uncertain
future of the project. I feel we were fed a can of worms, whether
intentionally or not, but remain committed to proceeding on basis
Appcelerator will do the right thing and enable the transition by
providing a something more than the token support offered to this
stage. I think how shameful to reap such financial rewards from
community then drop the desktop project that many count on. Then, when
there is a direct request for minimal support for transition for
people on their own time to commit, they come back with nothing - no
legal help, no financial support or donation to kick start , a
possibility of some office hours support and only offer to cover cost
of some hosting or domains as part of their operations. It is
unacceptable and falls terribly short.

[fairwinds]

Hi Michael. Thank you. Your PHP and Python skills should be of value for the language support. Sharry is involved in communications aspect as you can see which is a good endeavor to keep a community informed. Help is good in many forms. In interim the code base is available to study in interim while basic legal issue and support are clarified. We are not dead yet. I have skills in multiple langs and most recently develop an automated build system for c++ libs, and nifs for complex builds in Erlang. I work with a number of langs but have also spent time to read code and work with SDKs from lower level.

You might already know the SDK support is python and the code there is quite understandable. The multilanguage support comes through kroll which bridges objects in different langs. You can study Kroll as well which is probably most interesting to me as most novel part of code base. I want this thing to succeed and want to get going as soon as as some sign of commitment from Appcelerator. We need some real support there to proceed.

[Sharry]

I too want to see the code morning forward Michael, also like you I have no C++ programming skills, only web dev language knowledge. Again, that's why feel kinda useless outside my marketing role in the leadership team. Once the team stop meeting up, I'm not sure what else to do at this point. 

Kevin gave Boydlee & I access to JIRA, I have have exported the Ti Deskop JIRA issues & am still working on a way to intergrate those into another system. 

Regards

Sharry

[fairwinds]

Thank you Kevin for our productive discussion today. Am looking forward to gathering with some other to help bring the former TiDesktop back to life. If folks come across this post and have development skills in, in c++, ObjC, xcode, msvc, gcc, python, scons, please join us on #tidesdk irc channel. The #tidesdk is not just for core development but what we hope to be a channel for folks to help each other on api and support. I have posted summary of conversation and pledges of support below for reference:

==============

Replying to post here with positive developments with Appcelerator and recent pledges of support from Kevin Whinnery today on our recent #tidesdk channel on freenode. I post excerpts below for reference. I believe we are finally on right track to move forward with the code base with appropriate commitments. Have received several indications of support and thank those who took time to communicate directly. We need additional minds that possess deeper skill set. If you have c++, ObjC, xcode, msvc, scons, webkit, python skills and can lend a hand, please join us on #tidesdk. Our initial priorities are to triage bugs, document the build process, clean up the code where necessary, and sandbox code on OSX so that there may be continued access for apps on AppStore. Please be patient with us, progress is bound to be a bit slow at onset as this is a large codebase. I encourage anyone with an interest to start with a code study to gain insight.

• Titanium Desktop
• Kroll
• Titanium Build

It is interesting reading and you will immediately identify with the potential that exists in the code base to enhance the capabilities of the desktop api, learn how Kroll plays a special role as a bridge for objects for the multi-language support (which is a unique trait in this code).

Excerpts from June 7, 2012

[5:23pm] kwhinner: fairwinds wrt the three things you asked specifically - the legal issue needs to be taken care of asap regardless - have our legal counsel working on that now for desktop specifcally [5:23pm] fairwinds: and kroll involvement in that code also? [5:23pm] kwhinner: yes [5:23pm] fairwinds: great [5:24pm] kwhinner: wrt to a communications channel, that is bounded by the personal time and availability of one guy - Josh Rosselin. He is the only member of the desktop team still on staff [5:24pm] fairwinds: what of other two points. on the third the office support time, a more flexible arrangemment woulb be plus [5:24pm] fairwinds: I see [5:24pm] kwhinner: he can and has been answering e-mails on a best effort basis [5:25pm] fairwinds: yes, perhaps if he could drop into this channel also from time to time [5:25pm] fairwinds: would be great [5:25pm] fairwinds: perhaps set up a bot so he can see what we are up to [5:26pm] kwhinner: I'll alert him that it exists. He's been working round the clock on Android, so his time is likely to be limited. That's why I thought it might be better to try and carve out specific office hours so he can time box a certain chunk of time to talk desktop [5:26pm] fairwinds: but can certainly seek him out as needed. [5:26pm] fairwinds: kwhinner: this is certainly helpful [5:27pm] fairwinds: on issue of donation. I am hoping we can get a kickstart. It is really needed. I think can help recruit help and find some folks with interest [5:27pm] kwhinner: with regard to a donation to fund bug fixes, I'm not in support of that. Not because I don't want to spend $25K on desktop. Because I don't want to throw $25 K at a problem and hope that it helps (like our public education system, but I digress) [5:27pm] kwhinner: we can talk about specific needs [5:28pm] kwhinner: for actual hard costs [5:28pm] fairwinds: hmm. what we need is something that can accelerate the process in short term [5:28pm] kwhinner: happy to help in many ways on that front [5:28pm] kwhinner: wrt hard costs [5:28pm] fairwinds: I think the funds would hellp in this regard [5:29pm] fairwinds: k, listening [5:29pm] kwhinner: as I mentioned before, we are willing to help allay costs so that no out of pocket investment is required of contributors, like hosting, tools, etc. [5:29pm] kwhinner: happy to do that as needed [5:30pm] kwhinner: but funding development has no guarantee to produce a viable project. It has to be community driven [5:31pm] fairwinds: kevin, understand this position but is only incentive to get folks to take interest initially, a short term crutch until we develop a more solid core of folks to hack on this stuff [5:31pm] fairwinds: Please see what you can do [5:32pm] fairwinds: an could be a good will gesture also [5:32pm] fairwinds: since many folks realy did not want desktop to disappear so there is continued interest [5:32pm] kwhinner: I'm not sure it even works as a crutch. If the project had 25K to spend on developers, where would we find them? Who would administer the fund? Appcelerator hasn't the time to do so and perform oversight. TideSDK has no treasury or accountability mechanisms [5:32pm] fairwinds: but most of these folks are js ony types [5:33pm] kwhinner: right [5:33pm] kwhinner: which is the core problem [5:33pm] kwhinner: a community of developers beyond end users with C programming and Webkit hacking skills needs to emerge to support the codebase [5:34pm] fairwinds: first, there were a couple of us to help identify priorities for the work. I would be happy if we arrive at priorities and came to you with small funding requests to draw down for concrete bounties [5:34pm] fairwinds: so I have no problem cash remains with you, just that is set aside [5:34pm] fairwinds: for such efforts [5:36pm] kwhinner: I'm not going to be able to set aside budget for $25K for desktop development. I have some flexibility with DR budget that I am happy to apply for small things that can help the project's contributor cost to remain at zero, but I'm not likely to be able to get dedicated funding, nor do I necessarily agree that it's a good idea if I could. Funding specific bounties at a certain level could maybe happen, on a pre-approve [5:37pm] kwhinner: for maybe something like "get this to compile on Linux" [5:37pm] fairwinds: I would be happy with pre-approved bounties at certain level [5:37pm] kwhinner: "and document the process" [5:37pm] fairwinds: sure [5:39pm] fairwinds: I want this approach also. I want to see a bit of a code clean up, better build documentation, a build bot, and to see things moving so folks can have some faith that something will come from this [5:39pm] kwhinner: Then maybe we do this: Identify the top level technical tasks that need to get done. Schedule an office hours session with Josh - maybe he can help get a rolling start on the biggest ones. After the community takes a crack at them, maybe then we consider doing a bounty or two to get past some key early hurdles [5:40pm] fairwinds: that is a reasonable start. I would also like it we could encourage help through channels you have available to see if we can scare up some more people [5:41pm] fairwinds: ie the public appcelerator channels [5:41pm] fairwinds: ie blog, qa and such [5:41pm] blackorzar: Agree [5:41pm] fairwinds: beyond our own capability for pr [5:41pm] fairwinds: that would be meaningful also [5:41pm] blackorzar: thanks for helping this to get moved [5:41pm] kwhinner: that can certainly happen - I would like to see a plan put together, and specific tasks that the project needs help on [5:42pm] fairwinds: kevin, I think best short term plan is we may triage buglist and focus on sandboxing [5:43pm] fairwinds: or we loose capability with apple appstore soon [5:45pm] fairwinds: I appreciate this so we can put bad feelings to bed and work on somehting more positive [5:46pm] fairwinds: important thing is moving forward and there is a need to see something anything [5:46pm] kwhinner: you should have admin now [5:46pm] fairwinds: happen in the code base [5:46pm] fairwinds: k, appreciate, thank you [5:46pm] fairwinds: on legal side soon you think? [5:47pm] kwhinner: I certainly hope so, though I don't know what else is on Nina's plate [5:47pm] kwhinner: we actually only had a dedicated counsel for about a month now [5:47pm] fairwinds: I mean no later than end of month [5:47pm] kwhinner: which is nice to have one in house [5:47pm] fairwinds: ah, i see [5:47pm] blackorzar: kwhinner: In the email list there are some posts about the building system... I'm not sure about appcelerator strategy for that... do you know what it is? [5:47pm] fairwinds: yeah I bet [5:48pm] kwhinner: blackorzar the build server is proprietary software which we could potentially get released. [5:49pm] fairwinds: this would be super actually. thing is that we can improve or modify once we have some experience with what you were doing specifically [5:49pm] blackorzar: ok that sounds great [5:50pm] kwhinner: https://github.com/appcelerator/titanium_build [5:50pm] kwhinner: this is the configuration for our CI server, which built the desktop packages [5:50pm] kwhinner: would be a good way to look at distributing builds int he early going [5:51pm] fairwinds: k, super yes. I know hudson [5:52pm] kwhinner: i will try and get the build server for the app packager open sourced [5:52pm] kwhinner: it's PHP which calls these scripts [5:52pm] kwhinner: so not super complex [5:53pm] kwhinner: it just requires an AWS setup with the necessary OSes [5:53pm] fairwinds: sure [5:53pm] fairwinds: that would be great [5:55pm] fairwinds: have to get going to eat something, but appreciate this very much. I will write note to indicate the help this is receiving an your pledges




[Micheal Cottingham]

With regards to a build service, if for whatever reason Appcelerator doesn't want to/can't release their build system, I don't see why we can't (we being the community since I still lack time to contribute for the time being) do something with Buildbot or Jenkins. I'm a personal fan of Buildbot (open source), but pretty much it's just a matter of something that'll set up slaves on multiple build targets, which both Buildbot and Jenkins do. And then it's AWS instances or something similar for those slaves. It should be a relatively straight-forward process as far as that goes.

Issue tracking can be done on github, where the  code currently lives, or something like Bugtraq (ewwwwwwwwww) or JIRA (ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww) can be setup. There are other alternatives as well. I don't think it'll be too hard (relatively speaking) to write a Python script or something to import the JIRA bugs in to github either.

Is that the gist of the technical stuff? The funding and treasury stuff is not something I have much experience with.


Micheal

[fairwinds]

Exactly. Have had some discussion with Josh at Appcelerator last night. Will be verifying with Kevin whether we are able to piggy back on Appclerator's system. My preference is to get our own setup going fairly quickly and to launch the instances we need for our build automation. Confident Kevin will help get this going quickly.

We are first verifying the builds and build instructions before worrying too else atm. First things first. I have begun wiki at https://github.com/TideSDK/TideSDK/wiki. There was a group of us up to about 4 am at #tidesdk on freenode collaborating on first steps. Please join us. This is a channel we have made for user support and development. We want to ensure local builds are good with clear instructions first before soliciting developer help. There is nothing worse than asking for help and folks can't get started. So this is top priority atm.

Regards,

David

[Chris Banford [Webascent]]

I entered !!!

Did it end up in some sort of email application black-hole?

Let me know and I'll see if those design files are still kicking around or not (might have gotten frustrated at lack of reply/progress and chucked them). If this project does show signs of life, then I'd be happy to help where I possibly can -- doing a few new vector Logo concepts would fit easily into that.

Cheers,
-Chris

I tried to get the community involved by creating a logo competition for TideSDK but not 1 person entered, instead all we have get is 'is this ready yet', 'add node' etc. This is not done  overnight people & we are all doing this is our own FREE time! The repository is there to be forked, if you want to add the features - by all means go ahead, please contribute to the community project guys. 

Rant over. 

Regards

Sharry

-- 

*******************
Chris Banford
CEO Dihedrals Ltd.
ch...@dihedrals.com
www.dihedrals.com
*******************

[Sharry]

Hi Chris, thanks for letting me know. We honestly never received a single entry, how did you enter plz? Did you email a certain address?

I've been asked by David to create a more 3d'ish logo for the download installer & program icon. Any greatly appreciated dude, been v busy @ work recently & had the BlackBerry 10 Jam conference in London yesterday. 

Regards

Sharry

[Chris Banford [Webascent]]

Hi Sharry,

It was sent to:
All submissions MUST be sent to ad...@tidesdk.org

Looks like I tossed the originals, but I have a copy of the (admittedly rather simple) logo in my sent box.

Here's a link to the rescued jpg:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16451758/Chris/TIDE%20SDK%20Logo%201.jpg

It's not very slick, but was meant more to find out if anyone liked the *Wave* idea or not.
Happy to do up some other options/directions too (as long as there's something happening on the project again!). Feedback & other ideas/directions, as always welcome -- I'm an artsy type (who loves to program) but don't get ruffled feathers if an idea doesn't fly :-) .

Cheers,
-Chris

[Sharry]

Hi Chris, apologies about the email & thanks for your submission.

I like the logo element, we need to find a sexy font too.  I'll put a tweet out about & see what people say.

Thanks again.

Sharry

[Chris Banford [Webascent]]

Hey, no probs -- glad that the project seems to be back on the up-swing :-) . Would love to help out with some graphic work if possible.

Cheers,
-Chris

PS. Saw your missed chat attempt -- was just out of the office for a min (typically). The best is to give a shout on Skype: zermattchris (but am off in an hour to ride my road bike over the Simplon pass to the Centovalli in Italy for a friend's birthday do, back tom eve with a stonking hangover I'd guess!).

[Sharry]

Hey, sorry I missed you via webchat.  I've just put a tweet out with your logo & was going to CC you in.  The project is expanding 99% thanks to David & Paco.

Sharry