Hello as well, On Apr 11, 2010, at 09:48 , Andreas Jellinghaus wrote: > for several years I have coordinated the OpenSC, OpenCT, Libp11, > Pam_p11 and Engine_PKCS11 projects: Created new releases, fixed > some bugs, helped many users with questions, applied patches > from developers all around the world, written some documentation, > tested our software and the packaging by distributions, kept our > server alive and up-to-date and done whatever else was necessary > to keep the projects going. Still most work was done by everyone > else, I only had to fill some gaps and start some processes to > keep the projects going. I'd like to thank Andreas for the great work during the past few years and for keeping the projects alive and moving forward! I heard about the intentions of some people to go to LinuxTag in Berlin for a get-together, if that will take place then Andreas receives a few beers/pizzas/whatever on me :)
> Recently however I started a new job and at least right now I > have little time available for these open source projects. > > Thus I'm very happy to announce Martin Paljak has agreed to > take over as project coordinator for these projects. Martin is > a long time contributer and very active developer to OpenSC. > He has already taken care of several parts of OpenSC in the past > and improved and maintained them, such as the PC/SC reader driver > with a focus on the PIN-pad input system, or driver for estonian > national ID cards. Also he has been co-administrator of our server > for several years and very active on the mailing list, helping > users and developers, and recently started to reorganize and greatly > improve our wiki pages. Looking back in time, I've been involved (at least using ;)) with the open source smart card related software since 2004 or so, with ups and downs in activity, as life usually goes. I can be accused in making it possible to use the Estonian eID card on "alternative" platforms, first Linux, then Mac, and it has all been possible because of the great work done by everybody who has contributed to OpenSC and friends! This has led to Estonia using OpenSC in the "official" eID software, which, I believe, led to the decision to create all of the software under LGPL or comparable (check https://id.eesti.ee/trac for the rest of it) I believe that working whit this has given me a "holistic" view of the smart card world that spans most common platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OSX) and crosses the border between open source and proprietary solutions. As it is known, OpenSC has been used by others as well in their products or eID rollouts, either with source or without it. Which is IMHO a great sign of good work. My main goals and improvement areas in OpenSC are: - Raise the visibility of the "OpenSC brand" (and its sub-projects like all the PKCS#11 tools) among dumb end-users (who don't know that they have received OpenSC software in a software bundle), knowing end-users (who knowingly look for OpenSC and want to personalize their tokens) and among developers and integrators. To make this happen, some re-organization in the website and project(s) structure are needed. - Provide a competitive "true open source" solution for end-users, comparable to what is available from either card vendors or eID rollouts. This includes having smooth installers for non-Linux platforms and a "user-friendly" approach. - Try to keep the project(s) active and attractive to new contributors and users, no matter what their background or interest. The size and vitality of the community decides the success of an open source project, IMO. - Keep the projects up to date with current standards, trends, platform developments etc. One of these targets is to have great documentation on how to use modern JavaCards with OpenSC (or more broadly, with open source software) I also disclose that my daily work has been related to open source consulting for quite some time, which also covers OpenSC (and proprietary additions to it) but I have no relationships with any vendor (either software or hardware). If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. If you think that my focus on end-user and eID can lead somewhere we should not go or I'm somehow otherwise biased, please voice your opinions as well. Thanks, -- Martin Paljak http://martin.paljak.pri.ee +3725156495 _______________________________________________ opensc-devel mailing list opensc-devel@lists.opensc-project.org http://www.opensc-project.org/mailman/listinfo/opensc-devel
