Contribute to FreeNATS
Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:30 pm
I would like to thank (again) all the people who have already contributed ideas, bugs, suggestions and time to the system. It has been a great help and (as I hope you can see) directly led to enhancements and fixes. But there is always more to do so...
If you have some spare time, an unhealthy love for all things networky, are (optionally) a social outcast and would like to help then read on.
Testing and Reporting Bugs
Simply use the system, ideally with the autofeedback options on. You can track either the development releases (and be a bleeding-edge tester) or the recommended releases and help pickup the bugs not noticed in alpha.
If you are tracking the development releases and have autofeedback on then, even if you report no bugs or that "all is well", I can see that X people have used the alpha for X days and no problems have been reported so move it into release.
Even more adventurous people are welcome to make themselves known and volunteer to be told of even pre-alpha releases for specific technical testing (you will occasionally get an incoherant email from me with a link and some tests to perform).
Please post all bugs and glitches with as much information as possible - ideally to the forum or alternatively direct via the feedback link on the site.
Now I know the UI has issues but if you see something particularly bad or something that would particularly confuse users then please do report it (no matter how minor it may seem). This will hopefully spur me into fixing whatever the problem is.
Translation
Not yet but in 1.x (perhaps) I plan to have the option of multilingual support. Ideally this would involve removing as much unncessary text as possible and then having as many alternative language versions of the text captions as possible. Theoretically the documentation etc would also ideally need translated.
If you might be willing to translate dialogues etc (even if not the documentation!) then please get in touch. There's no point in implementing multilingual support in the code if there are no translations available for people to use (and sadly I barely even speak English).
Code Contributions
Now I have had ideas, code snippets and examples of other people's test scripts sent through but as yet the system has been in no shape really to allow any direct code collaborations. Right now the core system is still not suitable but version 1.x should have optional event handlers and plug-in test modules which people can write and then (optionally of course) provide to be bundled for general distribution.
The type of things and input I am after for some point in the future if possible are as follows:
Legally Speaking...
FreeNATS is free open-source GNU GPL licenced software and proud to be so. The GPL is a "copy right" licence in that it requires that it is the overriding licence whenever two licences "merge" (this applies to the FreeNATS code not the VM etc for which there are many other licences but all allowing free distribution). Any code submitted to FreeNATS much be licenced (or licenceable) under GPL.
The "Copyright PurplePixie" only exists really because the licence requires it (and in fact it is just a statement of fact for most juristictions). You are welcome to keep copyright or not on any code you contribute. Full credit and relevant notices will be openly displayed.
I know this is all probably irrelivent but I have had people send other people's propriatory code as contributions to past projects (and it was really good and a real shame when it couldn't be used!).
If you have some spare time, an unhealthy love for all things networky, are (optionally) a social outcast and would like to help then read on.
Testing and Reporting Bugs
Simply use the system, ideally with the autofeedback options on. You can track either the development releases (and be a bleeding-edge tester) or the recommended releases and help pickup the bugs not noticed in alpha.
If you are tracking the development releases and have autofeedback on then, even if you report no bugs or that "all is well", I can see that X people have used the alpha for X days and no problems have been reported so move it into release.
Even more adventurous people are welcome to make themselves known and volunteer to be told of even pre-alpha releases for specific technical testing (you will occasionally get an incoherant email from me with a link and some tests to perform).
Please post all bugs and glitches with as much information as possible - ideally to the forum or alternatively direct via the feedback link on the site.
Now I know the UI has issues but if you see something particularly bad or something that would particularly confuse users then please do report it (no matter how minor it may seem). This will hopefully spur me into fixing whatever the problem is.
Translation
Not yet but in 1.x (perhaps) I plan to have the option of multilingual support. Ideally this would involve removing as much unncessary text as possible and then having as many alternative language versions of the text captions as possible. Theoretically the documentation etc would also ideally need translated.
If you might be willing to translate dialogues etc (even if not the documentation!) then please get in touch. There's no point in implementing multilingual support in the code if there are no translations available for people to use (and sadly I barely even speak English).
Code Contributions
Now I have had ideas, code snippets and examples of other people's test scripts sent through but as yet the system has been in no shape really to allow any direct code collaborations. Right now the core system is still not suitable but version 1.x should have optional event handlers and plug-in test modules which people can write and then (optionally of course) provide to be bundled for general distribution.
The type of things and input I am after for some point in the future if possible are as follows:
- API handler examples for various languages/environments (ASP for example would probably be good)
Tests
Windows guru to discuss, test, advise and develop the ability to deploy the system native in Win32
I already have some willing Linux and VM gurus for help - thanks guys - but more always welcome
Some sort of really cool monitor display - there is already a early XML API suitable for some kind of AJAXy APP and if someone says "I want to be able to save X, Y and Z from my script back etc" then that should be simple enough to implement
Legally Speaking...
FreeNATS is free open-source GNU GPL licenced software and proud to be so. The GPL is a "copy right" licence in that it requires that it is the overriding licence whenever two licences "merge" (this applies to the FreeNATS code not the VM etc for which there are many other licences but all allowing free distribution). Any code submitted to FreeNATS much be licenced (or licenceable) under GPL.
The "Copyright PurplePixie" only exists really because the licence requires it (and in fact it is just a statement of fact for most juristictions). You are welcome to keep copyright or not on any code you contribute. Full credit and relevant notices will be openly displayed.
I know this is all probably irrelivent but I have had people send other people's propriatory code as contributions to past projects (and it was really good and a real shame when it couldn't be used!).