[SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
Dear sluggers, I am investigating a sponsorship project that may get funding. What would be the most valuable free /OSS software that does not exist yet? This are my suggestions. 1. Free Wrap system (superannuation management) Wrap accounts let users invest in a wide range of investments through a single interface such as the web. It manages all the statuary requirements for super rules. Wrap accounts charge between 0.6-1.0 % of funds under management per year. With Australian Super Funds having over $600 Billion up management. Currently about 20% of clients use wrap accounts so the fees are worth up to $ 1 Billion per year. (Half that would be more reasonable) Using OpenAdaptor (opensource EAI tool for finance) + struts.apache I do not think it would be too hard. ;) eBXML should makes it easier to intergrate legacy systems. 2. Linux-based Voice recognition software Please comment and if anyone wants suggest a way forward I would be grateful. -- Richard Hayes Nada Marketing 2/713 Pacific Hwy Gordon Australia 2072 Phone:+(61-2) 9418 4545 Fax:+(61-2) 9418 4348 Mob:+(61) 0414 618 425 http://www.nada.com.au -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
Richard Hayes wrote: What would be the most valuable free /OSS software that does not exist yet? A compelling diagramming tool. Yes, I've used dia. The Sims. Microsoft also has two seriously mis-designed products: Powerpoint and Project. There's plenty of avenue for (1) a tool which supports presentations and lectures and (2) a tool that can assemble and explore the timeline and budget information for a non-toy project. Both topics have had extensive discussion at Edward Tufte's web site. -- Glen Turner Tel: (08) 8303 3936 or +61 8 8303 3936 Australia's Academic & Research Network www.aarnet.edu.au -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
Richard Hayes wrote: Dear sluggers, I am investigating a sponsorship project that may get funding. What would be the most valuable free /OSS software that does not exist yet? For a long time, I wanted Open Source Software (OSS) which I'd call: OSS Servers Change Management Database Systems. AFAIK, there is no OSS that has all of the functionalities below. Some things it can do: 1. Given a specific server in the network, can remember exactly previous configurations for 3 generations (parent, grand parent, and great grand parent) along with each file in each of those generations. 2. Given a specific server in the network, SysAdmin must be able to revert back to that generation along with each file in that generation through an operation or a set of operations availble in the systems. 3. Must be able to effect change of Operating Systems from older version to a newer one. Because of item 2. above the reverse will be possible. 4. Must be able to effect change of Operating Systems of one type (say MS XP to Linux). Because of item 2. above the reverse will be possible. 5. Must be able to effect change of Applications (delete, add, or a combination) for a given server in the network. 6. Etc. that is to do with any management of changes in the server of the network. 7. Source Codes must be GPLed. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
> AFAIK, there is no OSS that has all of the functionalities below. > > Some things it can do: > > 1. Given a specific server in the network, can remember exactly previous > configurations > for 3 generations (parent, grand parent, and great grand parent) along > with each file in > each of those generations. > 2. Given a specific server in the network, SysAdmin must be able to > revert back to that > generation along with each file in that generation through an operation > or a set of > operations availble in the systems. > 3. Must be able to effect change of Operating Systems from older version > to a newer one. > Because of item 2. above the reverse will be possible. > 4. Must be able to effect change of Operating Systems of one type (say > MS XP to Linux). > Because of item 2. above the reverse will be possible. > 5. Must be able to effect change of Applications (delete, add, or a > combination) for a given > server in the network. > 6. Etc. that is to do with any management of changes in the server of > the network. > 7. Source Codes must be GPLed. A combination of a good package management system, a reliable backup tool, a revision control system (such as CVS, Subversion or Arch) and cfengine will do most of the items on your list. Item 4 just requires (possibly automated) deployment tools such as disk imagers or automated installers. - Jeff -- Ubuntu in Mataró, Spain: December 5th-18th http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ "I'm taking no part in your merry 5-way clusterfuck - sort that mess out between yourselves." - Alexander Viro -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
This one time, at band camp, O Plameras wrote: >1. Given a specific server in the network, can remember exactly previous >configurations >for 3 generations (parent, grand parent, and great grand parent) along >with each file in >each of those generations. >2. Given a specific server in the network, SysAdmin must be able to >revert back to that >generation along with each file in that generation through an operation >or a set of >operations availble in the systems. those last three are tough problems, but should be theoretically possible with either full dumps of the system before and after changes, or using some sort of delta algorithm. I think isconf does somethign close to this though -- at least in the forward direction. I don't have that requirement for rollbacks though, I test on a small set of machines before rolling out new changes, changes are always small and manageable. It's not a perfect method but it works. >3. Must be able to effect change of Operating Systems from older version >to a newer one. >Because of item 2. above the reverse will be possible. cfengine and isconf are two tools that spring to mind for this task. I'm using cfengine on a production network of 30ish machines with good results. Actually, I think I misread this one. You mean operating system versions and not configuration versions; in that case I'm not sure I trust any software to do this automatically for me, yet. That said, I've had cfengine work smoothly on machiens that have been live upgraded from RH 7.3 to RHEL AS 2.1, RH 8.0 through 9.0 through RHEL ES 3, and Debian woody to sarge. >4. Must be able to effect change of Operating Systems of one type (say >MS XP to Linux). youch. What you want is something like cfengine for NT, class-based rules for configuring services, and somethign thats going to be able to copy user data between the two. the first part might be easy, the last might be hideous depending on the level of migration you want. >5. Must be able to effect change of Applications (delete, add, or a >combination) for a given >server in the network. cfengine again; servers on our network that are part of the, say, ftp server class, have their installed packages list checked, and packages installed. I don't do the reverse, because whilst I can guarantee that I need to install and configure a service on a machine, I can't guarantee that a machine that isn't part of a class isn't supposed to have that service configured. At least, not yet (lots of auditing involved) >6. Etc. that is to do with any management of changes in the server of >the network. Um. >7. Source Codes must be GPLed. www.cfengine.org :-) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
This one time, at band camp, Jamie Wilkinson wrote: >those last three are tough problems, but should be theoretically possible >with either full dumps of the system before and after changes, or using some >sort of delta algorithm. I think isconf does somethign close to this though >-- at least in the forward direction. I was going to mention http://infrastructures.org/ for more on this topic that you may be interested in. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 12:28:47PM +1100, Jamie Wilkinson wrote: > This one time, at band camp, O Plameras wrote: > >1. Given a specific server in the network, can remember exactly previous > >configurations > >for 3 generations (parent, grand parent, and great grand parent) along > >with each file in > >each of those generations. > >2. Given a specific server in the network, SysAdmin must be able to > >revert back to that > >generation along with each file in that generation through an operation > >or a set of > >operations availble in the systems. > > those last three are tough problems, but should be theoretically possible > with either full dumps of the system before and after changes, or using some > sort of delta algorithm. I think isconf does somethign close to this though > -- at least in the forward direction. > > I don't have that requirement for rollbacks though, I test on a small set of > machines before rolling out new changes, changes are always small and > manageable. It's not a perfect method but it works. Current versions of RPM allow you to rollback to previous versions of software. I've never had a need to do it though, so I can't say if it works as advertised or not. Your cross-platform requirement makes this moot of course, but it gets you a little closer to a solution... It does mean that you need to trust RPM for all your software management, which is a decision you need to make. > > >3. Must be able to effect change of Operating Systems from older version > >to a newer one. > >Because of item 2. above the reverse will be possible. > > cfengine and isconf are two tools that spring to mind for this task. I'm > using cfengine on a production network of 30ish machines with good results. I've also heard of people storing all of /etc in version control for this purpose. In my opinion it would be unnecessary if you kept your cfengine stuff in a source control system, but it would give you that absolute confidence that you could roll back and forward, even if cfengine failed. > >5. Must be able to effect change of Applications (delete, add, or a > >combination) for a given > >server in the network. > > cfengine again; servers on our network that are part of the, say, ftp server > class, have their installed packages list checked, and packages installed. > I don't do the reverse, because whilst I can guarantee that I need to > install and configure a service on a machine, I can't guarantee that a > machine that isn't part of a class isn't supposed to have that service > configured. At least, not yet (lots of auditing involved) RHEL also lets you do centralised upgrades. Of course, I'm a total amateur at this stuff, so I couldn't tell you if it lets you do the reverse operation or lets you remove stuff. Jamie? Actually, I know Mandrake has a 'parallel installer' application that ships with it; it uses SSH to install upgrades on a small army of Mandrake machines. Now, I'm not recommending Mandrake for production server use here, but I'd be surprised if other distros didn't have equivalent functionality. Does anyone know if this is the case? > >6. Etc. that is to do with any management of changes in the server of > >the network. > > Um. Probably "ssh" is the tool you're looking for there :) HTH, James. -- "Now, there are no problems only opportunities. However, this seemed to be an insurmountable opportunity." - http://www.surfare.net/~toolman/temp/diagram.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
This one time, at band camp, James Gregory wrote: >I've also heard of people storing all of /etc in version control for >this purpose. In my opinion it would be unnecessary if you kept your >cfengine stuff in a source control system, but it would give you that >absolute confidence that you could roll back and forward, even if >cfengine failed. cfengine vs all-etc-in-vc is like procedural vs functional programming; one of them lets you describe in detail how the operation is going to be done, the other one lets you describe the problem. That's probably not a good analogy, but with cfengine I can describe the goal state of the system and have cfengine sort out what needs to be done to get it there. Editing etc and rolling out changes also means handling heterogenous systems adds complexity to the system you use; cfengine effectively "factors out" the common parts and lets you describe the small changes meaningfully. >RHEL also lets you do centralised upgrades. Of course, I'm a total >amateur at this stuff, so I couldn't tell you if it lets you do the >reverse operation or lets you remove stuff. Jamie? You can flag packages for removal from within RHN, but its less fun than installing them. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 01:15:39PM +1100, Jamie Wilkinson wrote: > This one time, at band camp, James Gregory wrote: > >I've also heard of people storing all of /etc in version control for > >this purpose. In my opinion it would be unnecessary if you kept your > >cfengine stuff in a source control system, but it would give you that > >absolute confidence that you could roll back and forward, even if > >cfengine failed. > > cfengine vs all-etc-in-vc is like procedural vs functional programming; > one of them lets you describe in detail how the operation is going to be > done, the other one lets you describe the problem. That's probably not a > good analogy, but with cfengine I can describe the goal state of the system > and have cfengine sort out what needs to be done to get it there. Except that that assumes describing the goal state is about the same complexity (or easier) as making the changes directly. In my playing around with cfengine I've found the learning curve and the extra layer of indirection mostly annoying, rather than helpful. Usually I know the changes I want to make in /etc; it's faster just to go ahead and do it than figure out how to convince cfengine to do the same thing. > Editing > etc and rolling out changes also means handling heterogenous systems adds > complexity to the system you use; cfengine effectively "factors out" the > common parts and lets you describe the small changes meaningfully. True enough - where cfengine really seems to shine is in large heterogenous networks (e.g. >= 25 machines). OTOH, most of the server environments I encounter are much smaller than that; typically 5-15 machines, and usually mostly or all Linux. In this kind of environment I've found cfengine to be overkill - the learning curve for the local admins is just too much to justify the benefits. I'm currently experimenting with a etc-in-vc model instead (though storing only the deltas from base OS versions, not the full etc tree), and using arch branches to manage machine classes, so that changes get propogated via inheritance down the tree i.e. etc--all # Common stuff etc--web# Webserver configs etc--app# Appserver configs etc--db # Database configs etc. So far it's working pretty well, and much more fun that battling cfengine indeterminacy. ;-) Cheers, Gavin -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
This one time, at band camp, Gavin Carr wrote: >Except that that assumes describing the goal state is about the same complexity >(or easier) as making the changes directly. In my playing around with cfengine >I've found the learning curve and the extra layer of indirection mostly >annoying, rather than helpful. Usually I know the changes I want to make in >/etc; it's faster just to go ahead and do it than figure out how to convince >cfengine to do the same thing. There's certainly a tough learning curve; I've been using it now for 5 years and it's only the last one where I've had enough power to use it effectively. I find the power comes from reduction of human error, though... >True enough - where cfengine really seems to shine is in large heterogenous >networks (e.g. >= 25 machines). OTOH, most of the server environments I >encounter are much smaller than that; typically 5-15 machines, and usually >mostly or all Linux. In this kind of environment I've found cfengine to be >overkill - the learning curve for the local admins is just too much to >justify the benefits. I find it's an advantage even in smaller homogenous networks; 2 or more :-) I'd certainly use cfengine on a network of 5 machines if I was to start administering it -- there'll come a point where the network will grow and you'll want a tool that'll help you cope with the size increase. I know there's a lack of beginners guides on cfengine; perhaps there's an opportunity for a recap on Gus' talk a few years ago at the meetings. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
> OTOH, most of the server environments I encounter are much smaller than > that; typically 5-15 machines, and usually mostly or all Linux. In this > kind of environment I've found cfengine to be overkill - the learning > curve for the local admins is just too much to justify the benefits. See, 5-15 machines says "one admin" to me. If that one admin has a tightly honed deployment / change management solution (for example, cfengine), then she won't be overwhelmed when projects (not maintenance or support) start to multiply, or when four machines die at once. Learning cfengine is challenging, but even for small deployments, there's a pretty good saving to be had. - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2005: Canberra, Australiahttp://linux.conf.au/ "Linux continues to have almost as much soul as James Brown." - Forrest Cook, LWN -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 02:20:52PM +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote: > > OTOH, most of the server environments I encounter are much smaller than > > that; typically 5-15 machines, and usually mostly or all Linux. In this > > kind of environment I've found cfengine to be overkill - the learning > > curve for the local admins is just too much to justify the benefits. > > See, 5-15 machines says "one admin" to me. If that one admin has a tightly > honed deployment / change management solution (for example, cfengine), then > she won't be overwhelmed when projects (not maintenance or support) start to > multiply, or when four machines die at once. > > Learning cfengine is challenging, but even for small deployments, there's a > pretty good saving to be had. But from cfengine in particular, or from having a "tightly honed deployment / change management solution" in general? I'm all in favour the latter; it's the cfengine instance of that solution that I've found a hard sell. cfengine is sendmail in this space - does everything, but is a dog to learn. I want a postfix. Cheers, Gavin -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
> cfengine is sendmail in this space - does everything, but is a dog to > learn. I want a postfix. Now you're just toying with my heart! - Jeff -- Ubuntu in Mataró, Spain: December 5th-18th http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ "Odd is good by the way. I knew normal in high school and normal hates me." - Mary Gardiner -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
This one time, at band camp, Gavin Carr wrote: >cfengine is sendmail in this space - does everything, but is a dog to learn. >I want a postfix. Nah, I think cfengine's inputs language is pretty good for what it does; it's readable for starters :-) The counterpoint is that I'm using M4 to autogenerate some common structures in my cfengine inputs... -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
On Mon, 2004-15-11 at 14:44 +1100, Gavin Carr wrote: > cfengine is sendmail in this space - does everything, but is a dog to learn. > I want a postfix. Hear hear. I take that one further - cfengine is good at convergence, but that is only half the problem space (generating configs is the other half) and then there are problems which neither are suitable for. (Alva Couch's behavioral agent closures show promise here) I'm at LISA [ http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa04/ ] this week largely for the purpose of participating in the ongoing development of this area of research. Last year was pretty exciting in this regard - radmind, isconf, psgconf, agent closures, LCFG+SmartFrog - so we'll see what this year brings. AfC Atlanta -- Andrew Frederick Cowie OPERATIONAL DYNAMICS Operations Consultants and Infrastructure Engineers http://www.operationaldynamics.com/ Sydney: +61 2 9977 6866 New York: +1 646 472 5054 Toronto: +1 416 848 6072 London: +44 207 1019201 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Most valuable free/OSS software that doesn't exist?
On Mon, 2004-11-15 at 15:17 +1100, Jamie Wilkinson wrote: > The counterpoint is that I'm using M4 to autogenerate some common structures > in my cfengine inputs... Is that available for the bunnies to help them hop up the curve a bit? -- Ken Foskey OpenOffice.org programmer -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
