Hey jared, Iām not clear on the GPL implications (re:iOS) and āMIT to GPLā (what does āMITā mean relative to GPL?). I understand that GO wasnāt developed for iOS, but it sounds like there are some wrapper options. Iām familiar with the basics of GPL, but I realize thereās more than just GPL (nuances of how code can be GPL).
Would you mind starting a new thread from this post just to clarify some of the implications re:ST (I realize thatās asking a bit) or could you point me to threads that help clarify?
This is my concern - the current devs are doing this as a hobby (which I have absolutely no problem with).
If this is the case, what can I do to help move ST (or a derivative/fork) into a fully-staffed dev project?
In my professional life, I tend to work as a project engineer/business analyst/systems integrator. I āshepherdā new systems into enterprise environments. As a Business Analyst Iām responsible for working with the business unit (think end-user) to develop business requirements and translate them into systems and technical requirements, and then developing the system design and implementation plan. So I have moderate technical skills (having supported windows/networks for 20+ years), but not dev-level tech skills.
So of course my brain is thinking high-level āwhat is the end goal, where do āweā want ST to go?ā And who is the āweā in that question?
Seems like thatās the discussion that needs to take place, with players who really want to get involved to take some of the pressure of the current ST devs, and let them be SMEās/leaders.
Right, Iāve just spent the last hour and a half creating an x86/x64 installer for Windows users but before I distribute it I just need a response from @Alex that I can distribute his syncthing-tray application.
What we need is people doing stuff about the problems they see. I see a lot of entitlement above. Thatās not how this project, or any other open source project, works.
Thereās an interesting paradox here for maintainers of open source projects. If what you make is uninteresting crap and no one cares about it, you donāt get the satisfaction of having a lot of users, but you do get to work on your project and enjoy that. If it becomes moderately successful, you are instead awarded by lots of people complaining about how youāre not doing enough to cater to them, that the software doesnāt work for them, that it has the wrong license for their business plan, and so on and so forth. Suddenly you need to defend every arbitrary decision, or you get branded stupid or lazy. This is tiring and at best takes time away from us doing something useful, at worst smothers the flame that keeps the project happening in the first place.
No, what I am saying is that it would be stupid to be mad because some people made a lot of money by taking over the business, while it was not your goal.
What we need is people doing stuff about the problems they see. I see a lot of entitlement above. Thatās not how this project, or any other open source project, works.
Well I did take a couple first steps. I am beta testing the iOS client, and synced my first file there. It is (currently) closed source, so I canāt help out on the code there. I filed two bug reports with Synctrayzor, which looks extremely promising (and I think should be advertised prominently to potential Windows users ASAP). I also forked the last MIT version of SyncThing. I would much rather be able to contribute to what you are doing, because I think you are doing a great job, and I value the developer community here.
I also found some automated Go language conversion possibilities via javascript or haxe, although I expect it to be a rough transition and probably not a good way to bring the software to a new language, but it could potentially make it a little easier to start something, and perhaps copy over some useful bits that translate well. (I am trying out TardisGo, and hoping to target C#, since with that, I can reach every major server/desktop/mobile platform at once. I donāt expect I will have time in the near future to make a good go of it though.)
Thereās an interesting paradox here for maintainers of open source projects. If what you make is uninteresting crap and no one cares about it, you donāt get the satisfaction of having a lot of users, but you do get to work on your project and enjoy that. If it becomes moderately successful, you are instead awarded by lots of people complaining about how youāre not doing enough to cater to them, that the software doesnāt work for them, that it has the wrong license for their business plan, and so on and so forth. Suddenly you need to defend every arbitrary decision, or you get branded stupid or lazy. This is tiring and at best takes time away from us doing something useful, at worst smothers the flame that keeps the project happening in the first place.
As I stated earlier, my biggest hope for you and the team is you get the most satisfaction you can out of your efforts, and that simply means I hope you are objectively and open-mindedly considering how all the options might affect your own satisfaction.
I hope you donāt let the influx of hopes (perhaps presented negatively ā sorry) for this great software ever tire you out. (Take it as a compliment that you are popular and in demand.) You donāt owe anybody anything. Decide what you want, do what you love, and let that be the end of it.
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All enhancements made for Tiki Suite are upstreamed to each component. Syncthing will always be available as a standalone project and I expect that more & more distros and larger projects will include it.
Itās all Open Development and Free / Libre / Open Source, so please join us to make things even more awesome!
Iām sorry you feel thereās a lot of entitlement in the commentary - there are some of us (jared and I for example) who are more looking for insight/direction/leadership so we know what YOU want to do, while also throwing out ideas. And Michael above has created an installer, so heās acively doing something (he beat me to the installer - Iām still trying to get it to run as a service with NSSM).
Again, forums arenāt the best avenue for this discussion, unless itās a dedicated and moderataed forum with clear limits (end dates, specific items to discuss, etc), so I apologize if our enthusiasm is a bit overwhelming at the moment.
Iād certainly like to offer what expertise I have to help - but to do that I really need to understand where things are and where you want them to go, so I can perhaps identify what I can bring to the table for you.
At a minimum (as I mentioned above), Iād expect to see the leadership team clearly identified with responsibilities appropriately transitioned to that group so you can focus on being a dev/do whatever it is you want to do. (This of course, assuming the direction is contined dev/growth of ST).
Thatās a huge understatement. I came here from BTSync 2.0 debacle too and I honestly feel ashamed of the rudeness level towards calmh and AudriusButkevicius (and the SyncThing preexisting community at large).
As much as I would love SyncThing to become the one app to Sync them all (which is a lot), I donāt think the devs of this project are entitled to āclearly identify leadership team and appropriately transition leadership to that groupā in any way.
Can I politley suggest taking a look at http://www.dealingwithdisrespect.com/ as Iād hate to see discussions like this derail your love of this project.
Thanks for not taking that as sarcasm or snark - I truly meant it sympathetically, and wanted to try to show that thereās good intentions here, some of it perhaps worded imperfectly.
I think this thread may have run itās course and I donāt think I have much more to addā¦ Itās awesome with all the new attention, and thereās a lot of new people suddenly helping out with the project as well (by filing issues, if nothing else) ā plus all the fantastic work going on with Windows installers and service managers that I wasnāt even aware of.
But to a large extent, in terms of coding, reading and answering issues and support requests, setting up infrastructure and so on this is still a two man team. Expect response times, roadmaps and clearly identified leadership responsibilities accordingly.
Edit, additions. Thereās a lot of talk above about taking syncthing to the next level, to cater for the ten million users abandoning btsync, and how to incorporate and grow the project. I think those are fine questions to ask, but they are also questions the current team probably isnāt equipped to answer.
Suggestions are welcome. Not suggestions as to what you think I should care about. Concrete suggestions, preferably phrased as āI could ā¦ which would be awesome for the projectā instead of āYou should ā¦ because I think the project needs itā. That thing could be an excellent Windows integration (we have that! People have stepped up, now itās just a question of integrating and polishing), a Syncthing non-profit foundation that can manage a kickstarter to hire people, or whatever.
But if youāre asking me whatās the plan for the next five years, I certainly have no such plan. Never had one. Making such plans isnāt what makes me tick. If Iād have considered that from the beginning I would have gotten scared and never started coding.
Iām curious what the ātwo man teamā thinks of Bountysource and using financial incentives to potentially further Syncthing and perhaps attract new developers into the mix? There are already a few Syncthing requests posted.
Iām largely in agreement with others in this thread. BTsync has taken a significant turn for the worse and open source is a much better option in many ways. With increasing numbers of servers/databases being hacked/compromised, concern about back doors, government spying, etc. I think many are more interested in a self-hosted open source solution and/or client-side encryption.
From that perspective, Syncthing is also competing with Boxcryptor, Tresorit, Spideroak, etc. None of those are open source but they do offer reasonably credible client-side encryption, well sorted multi-platform support, and are comparatively turn-key, mature, and painless. They also all cost money if you want to sync more than a few GB of data and have access to their full feature set.
Itās not out of the question the core Syncthing engine could remain open source (unlike BTsync) while a premium paid solution is offered to those who want a more turn-key solution. There are a number of options for a āvalue addedā version of Synchthing. Other open source projects have managed to make money with similar business models (i.e. Ubuntu, etc.).
In the meantime, Iām still curious what the developers think of Bountysource?
Donations via Bountysource are definitely appreciated (I think I can speak for @calmh here).
Regarding monetization, Iāve already suggested on IRC to offer a syncthing hosting service where you can optionally sync your files to (like Dropbox basically, but entirely optional). Another idea would be support for companies. The problem with both is that we are all programmers, and I think no one knows about setting up a company and all that. Maybe we could figure something out if someone would help with the business side.
Thanks for the reply. I think those kinds of things are realistic and worth pursuing. Iām not opposed to potentially helping out with the business side of things. But I think client-side encryption is a big component for multiple reasons. Without it, thereās a lot more competition and many will, rightly, be more concerned about data security, etc. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a tempting platform, for example, but many are concerned about back doors, etc. A reasonable client-side encryption scheme would remove most of those concerns.
Iām currently using your Android client and, for an alpha release, Iām impressed. Nice work! With things like the mTime issue sorted out it will be even better. Several commercial offerings have somehow transparently solved that problem so Iām hopeful youāll find a solution. The Android app, SyncTrayzor, etc., have gone a long way towards making Syncthing appeal to a much wider user base.
