The Syllable project is pleased to announce that the reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated, and that the new version 0.4 of Syllable Server has been released. This release focuses on maturing existing functionality, improving security, ongoing system restructuring, and making the system a suitable base for third-party package managers. Although the project admits it hasn’t brought its unicorn factory online yet, extensive work was done on the nitty-gritty, so the full change log is quite long.
About half the packages in the system were upgraded, including key components such as the Linux kernel, UDev, the LFS init scripts, DirectFB, SDL, BASh, Packager, OpenSSH, REBOL/Core, the Cheyenne web server and CDRTools. Other important packages such as Ruby, Midnight Commander, Links and Transmission were also updated. XZ-Utils was added, providing the same LZMA compression as in 7-Zip, but in a different format that is becoming popular, and is better integrated with POSIX systems. TAr was upgraded and this version has support for XZ-Utils. Compression of the system distribution was changed from 7-Zip to XZ format. The latest development versions of Cheyenne and UniServe are included, which provide a new WebSockets framework for advanced persistent, full-duplex communication with the latest web browsers.
A few packages were downgraded to keep them in sync with Syllable Desktop, where some packages need more effort to upgrade than on Linux. Keeping software versions the same between Syllable Desktop and Syllable Server eases development and testing. The experimental Genode demo that was in Syllable Server 0.3 is not included anymore, because the new versions have become difficult to build on Syllable.
As an example of clearer system structure and improved security, the super user account has been renamed from “root” to “system”. Logging in to this account has been disabled: you are now supposed to log in to the account named “administrator” to manage the system. From this account, you can use the sudo command to perform actions with system privileges.
Here is the updated manual, which explains the key abilities of the system step by step. Syllable Server can be downloaded here. Extra software is available here.
.
…but dammit, I want to see some Syllable *DESKTOP* progress.
Most of the development you see here is Syllable Desktop progress. Syllable Desktop and Syllable Server are developed on the same base. They use many of the same components, from GNU and others, and our own build system with only limited variations between the two. For example, all the heavy system restructuring and most of the package upgrades will also be in the next Desktop build. Besides, Desktop has its own advancements going on.
Also, the last Server release was from almost two years ago, and the last Desktop build is from January, so methought Server was eligible for a new release.
Finally, if you want more Syllable Desktop progress, then make some! Syllable is a volunteer project.
You seem to be forgetting that skill is required to be able to do much. No, open source is not enough–it requires developers, which I am not.
Sorry, but that’s a lame excuse (which I pretty much expected, because it is used a lot). You wouldn’t want to put all progress in the world in the hands of computer programmers, now would you? As non-programmers always seem to think, that would be a disaster! 😉
So what would you suggest non-developers do in terms of helping out Syllable Desktop? File bug reports for things that just don’t get fixed? 🙂
http://forum.syllable.org/viewtopic.php?t=1326
http://forum.syllable.org/viewtopic.php?t=769
http://forum.syllable.org/viewtopic.php?t=1220
From this links related to bug reports, I like one of the posts of kaj:
“Unfortunately, nobody has stepped forward to fix this bug yet. As far as I know, it’s in several audio drivers. Anyone want to have a go at this limited problem that would be very useful to fix? I can’t believe nobody is interested in a rare opportunity to do modern system development.”
yes, he can’t believe. But why does he not take this opportunity.
Of course, he likes, that the hard work is done by other people, and he wants only to apply their patches, and later he claimes that he did the most work, and therefore is opition has the greatest value. (I remember the dispute, where he used the word “meritocracy”).
And another citation from kaj is (in a threat about a bug report):
“Yes, unfortunately, there have been no changes to the Radeon driver in a long time. It would be great if someone could update our driver port to the latest Linux version.”
Again he is waiting and begging for gifts.
But why doesn’t he, the so-called co-leader, do that kind of c/c++ coding? The answer is perhaps: he is so much occupied with “leading” syllable, that he has no time for coding.
Edited 2010-06-10 11:24 UTC
Please go troll somewhere else. I’m sure he and the other developers are busy coding, their just aren’t enough of them to make any significant progress on Syllable Desktop, IMHO.
Adam
I was writing about kaj.
And perhaps you forgot, that some time ago, kaj saied, that he is spending “Full-Time” on syllable. (And of course without doing c++-coding for syllable).
And it was just an assumption. I asked him, more than once, to show us the last and the most important c++ – work he did. Are there any c++-applications he developed? And perhaps, and only perhaps, you don’t know,that kaj, said with his own words, that he doesn’t know much about the syllable api.
I’m happy for you that you can be so sure, without ever seen a proof. I guess you know the expression “dogma”.
If you took a look at source code of the syllable api, you will know for sure who is rick. He can tell you more clearly about the c++-abilities of kaj.
It’s not a problem that he is not strong at c++, the problem is, that he behaves like the leader, having the strongest word. And of course it’s hard for a c++-developers, to continue, to be leaded and restricted by the opinions of a non-c++-developer.
And that’s why most of the syllable-developers leaved syllable.
Adam, you don’t know what great work related to syllable Jonas did, and how much it would have improved syllable and the syllable api, but because of kaj, this work didn’t went into syllable.
Edited 2010-06-10 11:54 UTC
Well, they could report bugs that do get fixed:
http://forum.syllable.org/viewforum.php?f=5
For example, you contributed testing information which helped us to get the OpenSSH server running on Syllable Desktop. Don’t you think that is progress?
The bug reports list on our forum occupies five pages, while the fixed bugs occupy three pages. So this rough estimate suggests that three out of eight reported bugs are fixed. This does not include fixed bugs that were reported on our previous web sites and bug trackers, and does not include all the bugs we continuously fix among ourselves during development.
I think you know all this, but at the risk of stating the obvious:
– Software projects have bugs.
– Large software projects have many bugs.
– Any change can create new bugs.
– As in nature, bugs come in all sorts and shapes.
– Bugs take effort to fix.
– Bugs are made by people, so they need to be fixed by people.
– Some bugs are easy to fix, some bugs are very hard.
– Ambitious and large software projects tend to have hard bugs.
– If you run out of cooperative people before you run out of bugs, some bugs are unfixed.
– Some bugs are annoying, some bugs are showstoppers.
– Showstoppers can, well, stop the show, meaning they delay releases.
– Annoying bugs can be ignored by those who can stand them.
– One man’s annoyance can be another man’s showstopper.
– In a commercial project, someone pays others to fix his showstoppers and annoyances.
– In a volunteer project, people are in the first place expected to fix their own bugs.
– If one volunteer wants another volunteer to fix his bug for him, he needs to figure out something to make him do that.
We are entering the social realm here, but this can take many forms. One way to make someone help you is to make other contributions yourself. On your question how non-developers can help, here’s how people have helped us over the years. I’m sure I forgot several:
– Write new system code.
– Write new Syllable applications.
– Port existing programs.
– Test code.
– Report problems.
– Fix code.
– Build code.
– Release code.
– Write documentation.
– Set up web sites.
– Set up communication systems.
– Set up download sites.
– Maintain sites.
– Set up web magazines.
– Write articles for the web sites and magazines.
– Create artwork for Syllable.
– Create artwork for the web sites and magazines.
– Translate Syllable and its applications.
– Translate documentation.
– Translate the web sites.
– Buy our CDs.
– Contract us for a Syllable-related project.
– Download Syllable by BitTorrent and leave it open so others can download from you.
– Donate money.
– Donate used hardware.
– Buy us new hardware.
– Provide us food when we don’t have any.
– Provide us shelter when we don’t have any.
– Promote the project elsewhere. Elsewhere is big, so there are many opportunities here.
– Write articles for other magazines.
– Write articles about Syllable on your own web site.
– Show Syllable locally.
– Spread our CDs locally.
– Help others install and use Syllable.
– Organise conferences.
– Setup a Syllable booth at some other conference.
– Provide space for a conference.
– Provide equipment for a conference.
– Drive us to a conference.
– Sail us around the country in your ship so we can have a nice conference.
– Make photos of our conferences.
– Film our conferences.
– Pay us a compliment.
– Thank us for offering the gift of Syllable.
– Be nice and understanding.
– Stimulate someone else to do these things for us.
It’s really not that hard to think of something anyone can do to support the project.
I’ve done any number of those things in the past (buy CDs, download the torrent and leave it open, donate hardware, open bug reports, and probably one or two others).
I think you can understand, though, that even someone who has been following the project for a long time might be discouraged by the lack of progress in some very important areas 🙂
Yes, you’re one of those people that we have known for a very long time, and that’s very much appreciated.
However, you’re not on AltME, our most efficient communication system. Since this seems very hard to get through to people, I’ll spell it out one more time as clearly as I can:
If you’re not on AltME, you have an extremely incomplete picture of what’s going on in Syllable. Heck, so much is going on in AltME, that I regularly find out that even our contributors who frequent it haven’t been able to keep track of all developments.
The reason we’re doing this in AltME is because it’s too much to fit into other mediums, such as our forum or IRC. In fact, we have never really used IRC and email has finally become so inefficient that our mailing lists have completely dried up (as they have with many projects similar to Syllable in the past two years, I have noticed).
We would have liked very much for AltME to have a gateway to more popular mediums, but it hasn’t. I have lobbied for this for years with the makers, but they haven’t proceeded with it. Hence, for many years, the groupware plans that we have for Syllable, anyway, have included a goal to build our own, more open groupware platform to replace or at least complement AltME. This hasn’t happened yet because we always gave core Syllable development priority. After six years, and in hindsight before the complete email dry-up, I decided two years ago that it was time to proceed with this. Since then, I have been stepping on the gas to realise this. So far, we have a base Linux server to run it on and a CMS for multiple-language web sites with news, downloads and RSS feeds. As I said earlier, we’re working towards exporting information out of AltME to the web.
I have worked on these subprojects by myself, so if this has meant that other Syllable development has slowed down, that’s quite possible, but it hasn’t slowed down anyone but myself. To give you a perspective on this, look at our code activity graphs:
http://www.ohloh.net/projects/Syllable/contributors
The slump in my core Syllable activity until half a year ago was due to working on the CMS and the web sites. The CMS has now reached a level that I can shift back to other subprojects again. Of course, while it was in heavy early development, some publications could be hindered, but it was necessary because I started it when we lost our entire web sites two and a half years ago. If you take the effort to compare to archived versions of the old sites, you’ll see that they were a far cry from the current sites.
I’m only human and I haven’t figured out a circumvention yet to the limitation that I can spend my time only once. Until I do, I have a strategy of letting my time count for as much as possible. That’s why I have made sure that as much as possible of my work on Syllable Server also directly applies to Syllable Desktop. I know that many people don’t believe this, but that’s where I have to leave it at. I can’t change other people’s emotional convictions through reasoning, and I don’t have time for it.
In conclusion:
– The good news is, there’s much more Syllable development going on than you think. Both development that you don’t see, and development that you may not believe there is.
– The way Syllable is developed, even more so than in life in general, if you don’t look for developments, you’re not going to find them.
– If you don’t believe development is there when we present it, we can’t help you.
– We are working on presenting more of our developments in more popular ways, but this takes time. If you don’t accept this, we can’t help you, either.
– The bad news is that, the way Syllable is developed, as an extremely ambitious project with extremely little resources, and with several subprojects, when we need to focus on one subproject for a while, you’re right that other subprojects are going to slow down.
– However, we have a strategy. We’re not chasing butterflies. When one of our subprojects gets up to steam, it’s designed to reinforce the other subprojects. For example, have you noticed this?
http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity
– Finally, there’s nothing really new here. For the entire decade, the entire life of the project, we have been dealing with the ebb and flow of resources; contributors, third-party projects, audience, media attention, competitors, hosting providers and what not. Obviously, the continuous coming and going of major code contributors is one of the most disruptive things to happen, as you can see in the Ohloh graphs, and it’s having clear effects, but look at our long-term behaviour:
http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/detail.php?group_id=55553&ugn=…
The project as a whole has been remarkably stable over the years. Syllable is not going to roll over and die. To suggest otherwise, I consider that an insult to the volunteers who are doing good work for us right now.
This is as good as it gets, until we get a bag of inflatable volunteers for our birthday.
yes, I can imagine how much you work on “sub-projects”.
What subprojects? It is clear from that thread that you, Kaj, like to write a lot. If you write “we work on various subprojects”, why are you not a little more concrete and and a few examples to your declaration, so that so that the people can understand you better. For example you could write:
“we are working on various subprojects, like example1,example2,…”
Of course I know why you are not more specific, and I also know why you don’t like the following idea. (But you will never say your real reasons, because you are ashamed, and affraid that could harm syllable and your own image)
I make/made the suggestion, that at every weekend, the main developers/leader of syllable (vanders,kaj,..) should write a little blog entry about what they worked the whole week on syllable.
Just a little blog-entry, with a few keywords, so that the information is organized, and everyone can read in short time, what you have been working.
I made that suggestion long time ago, and your answer was something like: “It would not be fun for me, to work on syllable under this conditions”.
Why it would not be fun for you to explain in a few words what you have done in a whole week?
If you say, that blogging is to complicated, than make something else. Use the forum for that. Make a new Forum thread, with the title: “weekly report of kaj’s work on syllable” and another with “weekly report of vanders work on syllable”.
So that way everyone could have a good idea, what in fact you are working on. It would be short and structured information, that everyone can read in little time.
You don’t have the excuse that you don’t have time, because you prooved in that tread, that you have a lot of time to write comments. With the time you consumed on writing this comments, you could have written a report for a whole year.
But of course you would never do that…. never… 🙂
(and you will never say your real reasons, why you don’t make little weekly reports)
http://forum.syllable.org/viewtopic.php?t=927
http://forum.syllable.org/
http://web.syllable.org/pages/index.html
http://web.syllable.org/pages/news.xml
http://development.syllable.org/main.html
http://development.syllable.org/news/feed.xml
http://development.syllable.org/pages/development-builds.html
http://www.ohloh.net/p/Syllable/contributors
http://www.ohloh.net/p/Syllable/commits
http://sourceforge.net/export/rss2_keepsake.php?group_id=55553
http://syllable.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/syllable/syllable/sy…
http://syllable.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/syllable/syllable/sy…
http://syllable.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/syllable/syllable/sy…
http://syllable.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/syllable/syllable/sy…
http://syllable.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/syllable/syllable/sy…
http://syllable.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/syllable/syllable/sy…
http://sourceforge.net/projects/syllable/
http://www.osnews.com/topics/2
http://www.rebol.org/aga-display-posts.r?post=r3wp225x0
http://distrowatch.com/index.php?distribution=syllable
http://freshmeat.net/projects/syllable/
http://freshmeat.net/projects/syllable/releases.atom
Edited 2010-06-12 21:38 UTC
the links to the changelog is a beautiful one. It shows so nicely the development of syllable. In the last year, there was nearly no real development. Just things like changing path, renaming files, changing simlinks…. and things like that.
I quote now, one of the most recent comments from a bug-thread of syllable, which shows also the great development of syllable you are talking about:
It is written by chamel:
After some thinking I decided to patch kernel in order to trace memory activity for specified application – dock and plugins, I compiled kernel and installed it for start and got first unpleaseant surprise some genius changed location for binaries from “/system/bin” to “/system/programs” which makes kernel patching very complicated, I need to recompile whole system as there are dependencies which must be resolved in order to make kernel patching possible. I dont’ have time for such things, as such practice of paths changing is quite common in Syllable development, instead of dedicating time to make system better, discourages me to spent my time for development in this os. Bye.
One possible explication why “real” syllable development is as good as halted, is perhaps because following people went away (in alphabetic order):
Arno
Dee
Flemming
Jonas
Rick
(and also more)….
I don’t know, why Arno went away, he didn’t say word, but the others 4, went away, exactly because of you kaj.
Did you take a look at the changelog of the last 12 month? with such a poor changelog you can not make a new release, and I see also no hope for more improvements in the near future.
Perhaps you remember your won article “Syllable Desktop 0.6.6 at Long Last”.
If you call 0.6.6 at long last, how will you call 0.6.7? I’m very curious about that, because I’m quite the 0.6.7 will need at least 2 years to be released (if I compare, what progess has been made in the last year).
Now kaj, your “enemies/opponents” are gone, you are now the indisputable king of syllable. You have just one problem, you are a king without workers.
Now something related to syllable server:
perhpas you remember Cosmoe, the fork of atheos, based on a linux kernel. Since syllable is also a fork of atheos, I still wonder, how you could imagine, that the future of syllable server, could be much better than the future of Cosmoe.
after reaching that semi-death status, I don’t think that there will be something like a “reborn”.
You missed to analyze that problems at the right time, instead you preferred to deny the reality, telling us how successful syllable is.
Anyhow I wish you good luck for the future, I hope you will be able to face the reality, so that one day you will not regret that you wasted a lot of time for……
(I must admit, I really regret the time that I spent on syllable).
You know so much better than us, you should really be the one developing Syllable. But of course, you tried, and the fork of your buddies failed.
You’re getting personal now beyond just attacking me, so I have to lift out one of your lies to set that record straight. Dee has not left us. He’s with us in AltME, working on his new InputServer and AGP support. Jonas is also with us in AltME, although he’s not active any more.
:-))))))))))
ok… sadly, I saw that Dee is not writing on the forum, so I was thinking that he told you officially :-))))
ok… I can’t stop laughing :-)))))
that is too funny….
perhaps you should know, that Dee went away even before I did that !!!!
When I realized that, I was deeply shocked, I could not believ…… what kind of people where on “the other side” :-)))))
In that moment of shock I was thinking:
“Are now vanders and kaj the only one not knowing about “that” “?
I remember with pleasure… Dee’s words: “now you know how deep the rabbit goes” :-))))
I hope dee is not angry on me, I was really thinking, that he told it officially.
there are even a lot more infiltrants on your altme world, than you could ever imagine :-)))))))))))))))
ok.. i try to stop laughing.. that was enough……
I take all my words back. Please consider everything that i said in that thread (and all other) as a lie.
And I apologize to everyone, especially to dee. And also to kaj and everyone.
I saw short time ago Thom writing that syllable is dead, and that gave me some impulse to also write something about it.
So I take everything back. And hopefully i will never again have the idea to write something related to syllable.
So there you have it. For anyone who has read this far: Syllable Desktop development has slowed down because some people have decided to sabotage it. They are hoping to destroy or at least delay it in favour of their own fork of the project, which they haven’t managed to release in two years.
Syllable Server has not slowed down, because that is one of my subprojects, and I’m developing it in the open. Because we designed it such that Desktop and Server have a large shared base, Desktop development has shifted towards this shared base. It used to have a much more even balance with native Desktop development, which is much more visible, because, well, it implements Syllable’s visual environment. The sabotagers are trying to use this to make people believe there’s no development at all.
perhaps you don’t know, but nobody stopped you and vanders from writting code and develop syllable.
How much lines of code approximately has vanders (the team leader) written in the last 12 month?
Syllable development goes slow, because nobody makes real development (look at your changelog).
So you try to blame the others?
it’s your own fault, that at least 4 developers (and even more) went away from syllable.
nobody was sabotating you, so don’t call them sabotators.
you don’t really imagine, that the syllable development will increase if you claim the existence of sabotators.
You must face the reality, if you don’t write c/c++ code, there is no real development. Searching for other excuses won’t make the situation better.
And if you call me a sabotator, perhaps you have a wrong idea what that word means. I told just the truth. Even if that truth hurts. Knowing the truth, is the first condition you need, to be able to turn the situation into better.
For the last 2 years you continued to ignore that truth. You denied everything. So what was your result? Did the situation turn into better? Did the syllable development increase? No. It became even worser.
For me it’s not a problem anymore, you can continue like that ignoring the reality.
You do have a talent for turning things around. It’s you who just claimed that we’re surrounded by saboteurs. Anyway, I don’t care, because I have long had proof of this situation. It’s just nice to get a public admission of it.
What you should have turned around is the fork these people claim to work on and use to draw people away from us. You’re right that Syllable looses because of this. Since I was always working on the skeleton, and others were working on the skin that clothes the skeleton, Syllable now makes a barren impression, while you people are finding out that you can’t walk without a bone structure.
As I have told you before, finally bring on that fork, otherwise we’re just dealing with vapourware. If it has anything worthwhile, we’ll port it back to Syllable.
dream on. Most of the syllable developers are gone. Vanders is still there, but it seems he lost some of his interest in coding for syllable (compared to earlier), I remember he was saying that he is tired.
In the years before, there was a development build every week, now there is a development-build every few month, the last development-build is about 6 month old! Compared to haiku, which has a development-build every day! (not just one, but all kind of version like: gcc2, gcc4, hybrid…, CD, anybot,….VMWare,…, raw,….)
The last syllable desktop release is more than 1 year ago, and even that release needed about 1.5 years! I suppose this one will take about the same time, if not more. If you try to extract information out of the change-log of syllable desktop, you will see, that the “real-development” (not just things like fixing a link, renaming/moving a file) is nearly ZERO in the last year.
In 2004 syllable has been seen as a small OS with a big potential. At that time they were a small group of developers, in that 6 years they even managed to lose developers, and to become even smaller.
Related to Syllable Server:
Yes the changelog is long (imaginary), but if you take a look at it, you also can see, that it has not a big consitence it is mostly:
update package, renamed/moved folder, configure options…. and so on…
but nothing related to real development.
What is the c++ source code, that has been written in the last 4 years by the syllable team, for syllable server, how many lines (roughly approximated) does it contain?
Yes kaj, managed to make a little linux-distro (if it can be called like that) in about 4 years!!!! And once he mentionated that he works fulltime on it 🙂 Yes this is a great result.
It’s funny, that kaj continues to tell, the few syllable users that are still there, that syllable is very successfull :-))
So dear UZ64, I guess you won’t see big progress from syllable…. in the near future. 5 years ago, when I start playing with syllable I would have never believed, that syllable in 5 years would come to that result. Everyone expected a lot more.
In the last 5 years they planned to have a “google summer of code” project, that even didn’t manage to apply to gsoc. Compared to Haiku which has this year, 7 google summer of code projects that are accepted by google.
I shouldn’t have wasted time writing about that subject, but perhaps someone finds it interesting.
Ah, it’s our Syllable house troll. His appearance was expected. To give people some perspective why he is now trolling against us here on OSNews, it’s because he isn’t welcome anymore on our forum:
http://forum.syllable.org/viewtopic.php?t=1548“