Nagios development moving forward

[Michael Friedrich]

Hi,

-------- Original Message  --------
Subject: Re: [Nagios-devel] Nagios development moving forward
From: Andreas Ericsson <ae at op5.se>
To: Nagios Developers List <nagios-devel at lists.sourceforge.net>
Date: 2010-04-30 10:04

> The problem is that Ethan is too swamped to learn a new SCM at the
> moment. Since that most likely means he's also too swamped to do any
> development work on the Nagios core and CVS is quite unusable by me
> and Ton, we decided to move forward with development anyway. 

Well I understand what he is doing right know, and I also understand 
that Ton and you would like to get things going with GIT.
I basically did the same for some NDOUtils patches recently, I don't 
like to work on CVS when I get my hands on GIT :)

> We're using one git repository each, and expect to be able to send pull
> requests to Ethan (or whoever takes the part of integrator) when
> Ethan takes the time to learn enough of git to join in.

Hmmm I was coming from CVS/SVN about a year ago, and it was hard at the 
first time, but after a while, it was rather easy. I wrote several 
notes, and summarized this into our wiki lately.

Maybe it will help Ethan since its focus is on the core within GIT.

https://dev.icinga.org/wiki/icinga-development

> It's meant to be an announcement that there are repositories where
> core developers are stashing bugfixes and enhancements. What people
> choose to do with that information is quite up to themselves.

Ok, will start testing and applying then.

> 
> Personally, I'd love it if people used my 'dev' branch for testing
> and, if it solves a real problem they're having, for production use
> too. All the changes I've done so far are bugfixes and performance
> and maintainability improvements that shouldn't change any previously
> working behaviour.

Maybe several patches and fixes will get into rpm/deb packages then if 
they are resolving major issues and no new official release happens in time.
Thanks for pointing this out, this will ease applying and testing.

> Yes and no. Hendrik Baecker wrote an email to me, Ton and Ethan a
> few weeks ago stating he no longer has the time to maintain NDOutils.
> That means that NDOUtils currently stands without a maintainer.

Ah ok. Thanks for the official info, thought about that a while ago.
Well, difficult situation then. Maybe time for Merlin to become an 
official Core addon? :)

> I won't be picking up that flag, since I'm also the Merlin maintainer
> and wouldn't want to sit in a position where I'm maintaining two
> similar modules. Especially since op5 won't be paying me to maintain
> a more or less competing product. Maybe Ton or Ethan will take care
> of it, or we'll announce that we're looking for a new maintainer
> sometime soon. If anyone's interested in wearing the NDOUtils hat,
> let us know.

A while ago, I would have said yes (I also told Hendrik that he should 
send Ethan my application, but I got on hold never having sent any 
patches or sth like that).

Right know my company will step over to Icinga and I will be maintaining 
this direction into the future, mainly regarding Postgres/Oracle support 
  in combination with the new API/Web.

So basically there's no time left for NDOUtils - it's basically 
competing with IDOUtils as a matter of fact, but only IDOUtils has 
Postgres/Oracle support and extended housekeeping etc. Overall NDOUtils 
needs to be kind of rewritten/improved as we did in Icinga - by someone 
who'll take the hat.

Furthermore there are signifcant issues on the code of NDOUtils which 
need to be fixed asap (imho) - just for the community who uses it right now.

Some of them are mentioned on the lists, some on the tracker and some 
are also within the patch collection of Opsera (talked to Ton on IRC 
about taking some of them into IDOUtils).

Regarding NagVis, mk-livestatus (nice approach getting to know on the 
couches next to OSMC 2009) get's more and more important and people are 
moving over. At least the german speaking community is really into that, 
maybe others will catch up too.

http://mathias-kettner.de/checkmk_livestatus.html

So the basic need of NDOUtils is not there anymore regarding NagVis - 
also if using Merlin/Ninja.
For other addons e.g. reporting tools development must not stop though.

There are 2 other guys on the NDOUtils team - how about them to get 
things going?
Or maybe a decision by Ethan, because currently the Nagios XI Enterprise 
version also ships with a buggy, not patched version of NDOUtils. And I 
suspect, for business needs, that's not really a good choice offering that.

Anyways, I am happy to see that something's going on on the Nagios dev 
side of life :-)

Kind regards,
Michael

-- 
DI (FH) Michael Friedrich
michael.friedrich at univie.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 4277 14359

Vienna University Computer Center
Universitaetsstrasse 7 A-1010 Vienna, Austria

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