Re: [squid-users] Squid-2, Squid-3, roadmap

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008, Alex Rousskov wrote:

> > WRT responsible sponsoring: I'm willing to pay a (reasonable) premium
> > to get the things that I pay to get into -2 into -3 as well,
>
> Thank you, and I am sure many sponsors would do the same if the
> trade-offs are explained to them correctly. Unfortunately, I have so far
> failed to convince the most prolific Squid2 developer to accept this as
> the default model and encourage its use.

Because I'm still not 100% convinced that the Squid-3 codebase is really
the "way forward".

I shouldn't have been the one that tried to pull some sensible direction and
feedback into the development group - those working and pushing Squid-3 should've
been doing that already. Unfortunately until very recently there has been
almost no public dialogue that I could see.

My concern is about project direction and sustainability. I chose to do
my work on Squid-2 in mid to late 2006 because:

(a) it was stable, so I didn't have to worry (as much) about whether bugs
    were due to me or pre-existing code;
(b) it was in wide use by people, so incremental improvements could be
    adopted by existing sites without as much fear as trying to push Squid-3
    as a platform;
(c) I wasn't sure at the time whether there was enough momentum behind Squid-3
    to justify investing time in something that may never be as prolific as
    -2; and I wasn't willing to invest even more of my time trying to drag the
    codebase forward.

I shouldn't have had to try and kick Squid-3 developers along to do simple things
like regression testing and local benchmarking; I shouldn't have to try and explain
that the model of "do whats interesting to you and what you're being paid for"
is such a great idea as a project direction; I shouldn't have to try and
explain why an architecture and a roadmap is a great idea for a software project.

I doubly shouldn't have to try and convince the Squid-3 developers considering
the -past history of the whole effort-.

This is why I'm not all that interested right now in doing very much in relation
to Squid-3.

As I said on squid-core, my opinion may change if - and I stress _if_ - changes
to the project structure and direction occur which I see improving things.
I don't mean "improving the paid project quota on Squid-3"; I mean things like
improvements in direction, collaboration, documentation, testing and communication.

> Personally, I would love to see active sponsors together with active
> developers agreeing on a pragmatic migration plan towards a single Squid
> roadmap. I would be happy to facilitate such discussions. The active
> developers alone have so far failed to reach such an agreement, but I
> think direct Squid2 sponsor participation may help resolve the deadlock.

To be honest about it, the only dissenter now is me. I'm not sure whether my
continued dissent is a good idea for the project, but thus far the feedback
I've received has been 100% positive. I'd like to keep kicking along Squid-2
until the point where a future Squid code tree is attractive enough to replace
it. And I'm going to keep dissenting until I see the fruits of actual change,
not just the discussion of it.

Adrian

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