[thor] Re: [horde] reagent: the code

[Carlos Pedrinaci]

Hi,

I don't know if you are aware of Thor which aim is to provide a way to
organize and manage projects, allowing users to create project plans,
add a bug tracking system via Whups etc..
The code is currently quite simple, but it is evolving everyday. It is
currently under reorganization so as to get a more adaptable
architecture (almost done) suitable for everyone.
I think you also might be interested in having a look at it's code.
However, if I'm not wrong your code was done for Horde 2. Current head
version of Horde (which will be released soon) has a lot of new and
wonderful features Thor makes use of. 

I know its usually hard to coordinate students and even more difficult
to coordinate them with an external Open Source Project, but it would be
a pity to duplicate efforts.

I'm looking forward for your opinion.
Regards, 

Carlos


On Wed, 2004-04-21 at 01:59, Mij wrote:
> hello people
> 
> so. I spent some hours the last days on reagent (see former posts).
> While there are thounsand details that require to be fixed/completed
> I got the application working. You can:
> 
> - list users/developers registered to the community
> - see the profile of a specific user (photo, realname, notes etc and
> the project he contributes)
> - see the profile of a specific project (logo, name, synopsis etc and
> the members it encounters)
> - edit the profile of a user (*1)
> - create a new user (*2)
> - edit the profile of a project (*1b)
> - create a new project
> - subscribe/unsubscribe members to projects, set them leader,
> change their role against the project
> 
> Its architecture has been thought to be easy and pleasant to use.
> Parts of the Apple Human Interfaces Design Guide has been used.
> 
> 
> 
> *1:
> it's thought this way: a) anyone can edit his own profile. There are a 
> set of
> special users, "administrators", who can edit *all* the profiles; b) 
> projects
> works about the same way. There's a "project leader" who can edit the
> project he leads, then every admin has the ability to change every 
> project.
> Admins can also create new projects and new users.
> 
> *2:
> this means two things: you can create a new *horde* user (this is 
> currently
> not implemented but quick to be done. Just the next thing to do. You can
> create a *reagent* user, or better "enable an existing horde user to be
> profiled on reagent". This one is currently supported.
> 
> 
> There's some screenshots on 
> http://dev.publicshout.org/reagent/shot_reagent/png/
> 
> Of course everything on those shots is completely stupid and mostly not 
> existing,
> just to fill the database with something to dump on the application.
> 
> 
> Important, about its license:
> I didn't decide for a license yet. It will probably be BSD, maybe LGPL, 
> at most GPL.
> Have to say that it's the fruit of a project I'll be assessed on as 
> part of a university
> examination. Unlikely will the Institute (Politecnico di Milano) impose 
> requirements
> about the license. Even in this case, very very unlikely they will 
> impose me to
> license it with a license stricter than "free for non-commercial use". 
> I guarantee I will
> fight for the most free. What I hope and think: they will request the 
> Intellectual Property,
> leaving it free for any use for the rest. After all, 
> http://webmail.polimi.it/ ...
> 
> Then:
> for the facts above, I haven't still marked any source with licenses 
> stuff. I will provide
> sources to anyone interested in having a look, but privately: just drop 
> me a mail.
> I just want to skip sources leaks.
> For anyone who formerly notified his interest in contributing: please 
> write me again,
> I will provide:
> 
> - tgz sources
> - reagent cvs account
> - reagent test platform web account
> - reagent database account (it contains that stupid data said above,
> but with the tables ready)
> 
> 
> Other notes:
> As part of the project said above, this kind of jobs are meant to take 
> students about
> 70-80 hours. Since it requested to me a bit more and it's <80% done, I 
> requested
> for extending it to a wider project I'll offer as micro-thesis. This 
> will imply to introduce
> more techology like XML, security, performance. Giving example, I 
> thought to
> implement CRAM (*3) for horde (i'll do that for reagent, so extending 
> wouldn't be heavy),
> and import/export anything about projects and users through XML.
> 
> *3: it is quite useless to store password as md5 hashes on the db, then 
> ask the
> user to post its clean password via http: 80% of the times the db and 
> the web servers
> are on the same host, and the rest of the times their link can be 
> easily made secure
> with a simple encrypted tunnel. What is actually insecure is 
> client-webserver.
> The job is to require the client to compute the md5 itself (via JS) and 
> sent *that*
> password to the client. In fact, the thing will be: the server posts a 
> challenge to the client.
> the client computes the md5 of the clear password, concatenates the 
> challenge and
> computes a the md5 (hex) of the result, then posts *that* password. The 
> server pulls
> the md5 hash of the user's password and authenticates the same way.
> I already got that working on a standalone trial, using a nice JS 
> library which's BSD
> licensed.
> 
> 
> -> TODOs
> there's a lot of todos. most of them are in the TODO file inside the 
> package, but there's
> more. Thanks to the current status of the app, all the core code is 
> well written, but
> it hasn't been refined enough all the UX.
> Mostly:
> - completely do the errors handling. I just roughly invoke a 
> Horde::fatal() now
> - rewrite the search panel for rising its powerful (quick job, just 
> replace radios with
> checkboxes and the engine is almost ready for handle that)
> - better integration with horde's "widgets"
> - introducing users' prefs
> - implementing custom order in lists (users, projects, members ...)
> - automatically generate thumbnails of the pictures users submit (for 
> themselves
> and as logos for projects) and include these thumbs while listing users 
> (include
> their pictures) and projects (their logo)
> - i18n: the app is gettext-ready. Just write translations (italian half 
> done as proof of concept).
> - ... about twenty other TODOs
> 
> 
> In sum:
> - current status: have a look at 
> http://dev.publicshout.org/reagent/shot_reagent/png/
> - who's interested in having the code, plase write me: i'll be happy to 
> send you.
> 
> 
> sorry for the mess with sources.
> 
> If you have questions of any kind, i'll be glad to answer here on the 
> ml.
> 
> ciao