Download links are dead

[brad]

Although I personally feel your pain (I can't download joomlaXplorer right now),

http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomlaxplorer/

Thanks for your support BTW.

[Pomond]

Thanks for the link, Brad.  I did manage to find joomlaXplorer once I searched for it on joomlacode.org.

I think that things are a little confusing right now, with the reviews and links in one location and the files in another, but it looks like everything is getting sorted out quickly.

YOU GUYS ROCK. KEEP ON ROCKIN.

[Tonie]

Just sent a reminder to all devs that have their downloads linked to Forge.

[Vimes]

Must get around to updating metafly on JED. Thx for the reminder, will try to do it tonight.

[vizion2000]

The most important thing is that we have software now which can't be downloaded, and we're going to do all we can to remedy that.

OK that sounds good --

we need to be able to get at everything that was there.. and hopefully that will include the good the bad and the ugly

It looks as though attention is being given and things are going to get sorted.  

In a constructive way I would like to recomend Joomla consider implementing a system of extension maintaince rather similar in structure to that used , with considerable success, by Freebsd for their ports. I wonder whether similar system might work for a joomla extension tree

1. Over many years I have been an extensive user of freebsd and its ports system. In that system the responsibility for the development of applications or ports (the parallel to ports in joomla terminology would be extensions) is separated from the responsibility for maintaining the means of access for users (the Ports tree and a combination of installation & upgrade software). 

2.The collection of ports is known as a ports tree and the port maintainers (adopters) are volunteers. Let me make it clear -- port maintainers are not responsible for the port code --  but are responsible for ensuring access is maintained and for checking that initial installation and upgrading works reliably. In combination they provide a form of quality assurance for users.

3. The volunteers dedicate themselves to maintaining the ports tree (which is also available to users). Each port is adopted by one or more volunteers (adopters).  They assume responsibility for checking out a port and once they have thoroughly tested its installation process it is committed to the ports tree using cvs. Under this system the developers of the port itself are not allowed to place a port into the tree. Only adopters can "commit" a port to the tree.  There is a big advantage --  adopters and developers need to maintain an ongoing relationship and communications in their mutual interest.

4. Adopters communicate with developers and reports bugs in the port to the developers en bloc. Users report bugs through a mailing list which is accessible by all users. The same mailing list is used to advise users and developers of new and upgraded ports and fixes.

5. Adopters collaborate on maintaining a customisable but standard software package which is used for installing the ports.

6. The ports tree is designed so it can be mirrored and ports are therefore not dependent upon any individual server.

7. The common software package makes provision for identify the location of each port so that the port can be downloaded via cvs from any of the mirrors. . Actually to be more precise the ports tree carries the instructions for automatic downloading of  the port code from any mirror site upon which that code is kept and for automatic installation of the port or upgrade procedure. The software used is configured to meet the needs of each user.

This distributed  system is therefore extremely robust and shifts the responsibility for maintainance, where it belongs, to the community and leaves the freebsd core development team free to concentrate on core development.

I believe, when the present hiatus is terminated, that some thought could be given to implementing a similar system for Joomla extensions. I do not have enough free time to undertake the responsibility myslef but could point people to appropriate sources of both information and code for implementing such a system. It would not need to be as complex as the freebsd  ports system but has a lot of similar requirements. The ports system is extremely good at managing upgardes and dependencies.

My two peeeenyworth

Any comments

david

[Tonie]

Joomla has grown exponentionally in the last year and a half. We are also noticing this with everything we do in the Sites & Infrastructure workgroup. Next week, Brad and me are meeting at the summit, one of the most important things we're going to talk about is the current state and future of the Joomla sites in general. GForge has some features for this, so who knows what comes out of this. Mirroring is definitely something we are going to discuss.

[vizion2000]

Joomla has grown exponentionally in the last year and a half. We are also noticing this with everything we do in the Sites & Infrastructure workgroup. Next week, Brad and me are meeting at the summit, one of the most important things we're going to talk about is the current state and future of the Joomla sites in general. GForge has some features for this, so who knows what comes out of this. Mirroring is definitely something we are going to discuss.

If you are at all interested in looking at the FreeBSD ports system I can recomend you take a look at
http://www.lpthe.jussieu.fr/~talon/freebsdports.html
for a good and reasonably detailed exposion of the system and its workings.

IMHO it would be not to difficult to build a system of mirrors on freebsd servers each having a web server interface for joomla users. The web interface could respond to the contents of end user config files.

That web interface could be used to control the delivery of extensions and upgrades to joomla users pre-configured for their environment. The back end would use the freebsd portupgrade command to collect the files and relevant installation code.

This might work .. no promises

david

I

[jwolpers]

I am trying to download several extensions today and ALL the lnks I click are dead. I registered at JoomlaCode.org and searched for some of them, found them, but got PERMISSION DENIED. I at least need these 2 extensions asap and would appreciate a working link! Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide these:

--SectionNav

--Advanced Syndicate

[vizion2000]

This is just getting to be toooooooo much  and going on toooo long.

I am seriously thinking of building an unofficial joomla extensions site for downloading via ftp as a temporary solution.

Is there enough support?

It would need volunteers to check out files before they are uploaded to make sure we do not get malicious hacks.

david

[vizion2000]

This is just getting to be toooooooo much  and going on toooo long.

I am seriously thinking of building an unofficial joomla extensions site for downloading via ftp as a temporary solution.

Is there enough support?

It would need volunteers to check out files before they are uploaded to make sure we do not get malicious hacks.

david

If you are supportive of the notion and can either supply files or are willing to offer to test files prior to making them available then contact me using this email address:

joomla@atf4.com

If there is enough support I will do it
david

[ot2sen]

Hi vision2000,

Unluckily you obviously have had problems locating some specific extensions for the last days.
None of us like when files we badly need are not available.

Can see that lots of developers are updating their listings these days, and the amount of extensions returning an error related to unavailable download location at forge are getting less day by day.

At the moment only 12% of the current 1618 listings still needs to change download links.
1419 listing listed are either using own ressource for download or using joomlacode.org for download.
Soon 100% of listings at Extensions Directory will have valid download links.

[vizion2000]

Hi vision2000,

Unluckily you obviously have had problems locating some specific extensions for the last days.
None of us like when files we badly need are not available.

Can see that lots of developers are updating their listings these days, and the amount of extensions returning an error related to unavailable download location at forge are getting less day by day.

At the moment only 12% of the current 1618 listings still needs to change download links.
1419 listing listed are either using own ressource for download or using joomlacode.org for download.
Soon 100% of listings at Extensions Directory will have valid download links.

That sounds good but what happens if  current system goes down. It seems to me that there is a danger of being too reliant upon a single source. Some method is needed to ensure that nomatter what happens these essential resources will always be available no matter what.

A single site has no scaleability.

So what I am looking at is making an backup ftp site available to hold joomla extensions. Such a site could easily be mirrored. That would mean less load on a central system and everyone would sleep better at night.

This stuff is too important to be left to chance.

The last count (according to tonie 48 hours ago) is that around 1000 extensions were not yet  up to date. Basically we have had a major disruption for a week and I do not think uyou, or anyone else, would want the commuinity to risk this happening again.

My two peeeeenywiorth

david

[maia]

So it seems i found the problem, and I can't help but feel vision's pain.

I'm a software developer as well, and one thing that I always try to remember is the human factor involved in such transitions. Not having an extension updated or not getting response from the developer doesn't mean the extension becomes useless, "probably" dead but not useless. What you get is a bunch of frustrated people because the developer is taking a break, eating tons of pizza, on vacations, whatever ! Still, you get a non downloadable working piece of software.

What should have been done: IMHO joomlacode.org should have started with a database/frontend compatability layer and a data transfer of all extensions from the old site to the new one as well. All page info/links would work and would be changed by the extension owner when converting to the new format. When migration ends, delete compatability layer.

Anyway, good luck with 1.5 . Despite of everything Joomla! still is and will be an incredible CMS.
Godspeed !

[Tonie]

This would indeed have been preferred. With Forge being out between 8 and 10 hours a day in january, this could not have been done in any way. Second, with the price we had to pay for Forge, we didn't want to wait for the migration for too long.

As for communication. Developers have received at least six emails in the last two months. If somebody fails to react to communication in this timeframe, IMO it has nothing to do with being busy.

[maia]

This would indeed have been preferred. With Forge being out between 8 and 10 hours a day in january, this could not have been done in any way. Second, with the price we had to pay for Forge, we didn't want to wait for the migration for too long.

Probably i read it wrong, but i think someone wrote about backups of forge ? What else do you need to migrate ?

As for communication. Developers have received at least six emails in the last two months. If somebody fails to react to communication in this timeframe, IMO it has nothing to do with being busy.

"Still, you get a non downloadable working piece of software."

[Tonie]

After tonight, the entries which are not downloadable will be unpublished from the Extensions Directory.

We migrated ALL projects from Forge to Joomlacode. When a developer wants his project now or after today, he only has to create an account on Joomlacode and notify us. Then it takes about two minutes to get him his project. This means we don't throw anything away, and have all information in Joomlacode now (besides the SVN now).

When the migration is finished, we will also post all projects which are 'abandoned', and were listed on the Extensions Directory. If somebody wants to take over the project (it's GPL software after all), they can.

[maia]

Hmmmm, where's "joomla! downloader" ? Gone ? Nice job .... It seemed a nice piece of software, and i wanted to try it. My bad ...

[LorenzoG]

Yes, Joomla Downloader is unfortunately one of the affected extensions.

[maia]

Oh, I see !

Now with the page gone .... is there any chance i can contact the developer ?

[maia]

Btw, a quick question: What about joomla commercial (Non GPL) extensions ?

[LorenzoG]

We have as policy only to list extensions with a responsible developer/group of developers that maintain their extension.

The extensions we have unpublished this time, are all GPL extensions or other Open Source licence extensions.

[vizion2000]

I feel really let down by what I perceive to be the autocratic and inconsiderate  manner in which this whole process has been handled.

If you are going down this route rather than simply migrating all extensions over to the new Please make a link to a page containing all abandoned extensions together with last know constact information and details of the extension.

I am willing to host all abandoned extensions on an ftp site.

David

[mpettitt]

As a developer of forge/joomlacode hosted extensions which are listed on the JED, I think the transfer was fairly smooth. Email was sent to the registered address warning of the changes well in advance, and requesting feedback/questions on the process. This was then followed with a reminder about a fortnight before the transfer, then multiple messages updating on the status of the move. And all of this from a group that doesn't charge a penny to let people use this system.

For abandoned open source extensions, it's sad that they aren't around anymore, but on the other hand, they've probably not been updated for quite a while either, so it could well be that updated or forked versions which are still maintained are around in their place.

[vizion2000]

For those developers who are on the ball it worked. However if you look back thouight this topic you will see that at the time the changeover to the new system ook place approximately 75% of extensions previously on the system had not been transferred. At that point only one email had been sent out to developers. When a few of us started to complain the first reaction was defensive. The second was to start pushing out more notifications and put more energy into trying to identify extension developers.

We all know that valuable extensions come from unlikely sources. Students at college, people who are away a lot, people who become sick. People whose email addresses change etc the world goes pear shaped. So changes of this nature need to be handled with the assumption that it might take 6 months to a year for all developers to make such a change.

There was no real reason not to include links to all extensions currently on the old site and then, after transfering them to the new site, to then invite developers to update their information.

My 2 pennorth

david

[MMMedia]

Too much happens in 6 months to a  year (as you suggested) security wise to allow unsupported/undeveloped extensions to be listed.  Developers should be on the ball.  Why are you complaining here?  Complain at the developers that were not on the ball.

If the developer doesn't wish to keep their information up to date, fail to respond to emails or attempts to contact, or if they decide they don't care about their extension anymore, it isn't the fault of the JED. 

Any developer at any time can contact the JED and have their extension relisted.  It isn't the end of the world.

[vizion2000]

Well if it was the end of the world then we would all be getting off!!!

The point is that joomla is the core the extensions are the value. Why take a way value when there is no need to do so???

Why should JED decide whether to list or unlist? Extensions are community proporty not JED's.

Security is not the issue -- availability is. If there is an extension that is inadequate and it is available then someone can hack it to make it adequate. If it is not available then the value of all that prior work to the community is unavailable. It is not the developers who benefit from extensions but the users.

The thing was so badly handled that even kety extensions were not available from the site for weeks.

BTW Nobody asked JED to look after extensions but when they offered to do so and were trusted enough to act as caretakers for the whole community the IMHO they had no business to arbitarily stop listing them with asking users if they would be happy with that. I hate to say this but, to my mind, the way this was handled amounted to an arbitary abuse of both trust and power.

In the future it would be better if extensions were not put on the JED site but independently hosted, controlled and mirrored.

If joomla have another bust up (like the mambo/joomla fracas) then we could finish up losing not only the core but also the extensions. This is a major credibitlity/security issue the significanace of which has not yet been fully appreciated.


My 2 pennorth

[maia]

Developers should be on the ball.  Why are you complaining here?  Complain at the developers that were not on the ball.

If the developer doesn't wish to keep their information up to date, fail to respond to emails or attempts to contact, or if they decide they don't care about their extension anymore, it isn't the fault of the JED.

For god sake, you can't see the whole picture can't you ? This is a promiscuous problem: extension developers are part of the problem because of what the haven't done, joomla team is the one to blame for what they've done.

This isn't a dance session or a football game, we're dealing here with the same community which made what joomla is today. I know sometimes $#it happens, but developers have always to predict the "should's" of the issue and not simply pointing the finger at other people.

You can go around with endless arguments of what should have happened what should have been done. Nevertheless, the problem persists and it's affecting many people. Live with that !

[MMMedia]

The point is that joomla is the core the extensions are the value.

That is just absurd.  You are basically saying that Joomla! has no value. 

Security is not the issue -- availability is.

Wrong.  Security is of the upmost importantance. 

BTW Nobody asked JED to look after extensions but when they offered to do so and were trusted enough to act as caretakers for the whole community the IMHO they had no business to arbitarily stop listing them with asking users if they would be happy with that. I hate to say this but, to my mind, the way this was handled amounted to an arbitary abuse of both trust and power.

Wrong again.  In fact many times over it was asked if there could be a unified place to find extensions.  The community asked for something like the JED.  The JED is not the caretakers of the extensions, it is simply a resource where developers can list their projects and products. The developer has to take responsibility, they have the ability to list or not list their extensions.  No one forces them to do anything other than if they are listed, they need to keep their contact information up to date. 

In the future it would be better if extensions were not put on the JED site but independently hosted, controlled and mirrored.
If joomla have another bust up (like the mambo/joomla fracas) then we could finish up losing not only the core but also the extensions. This is a major credibitlity/security issue the significanace of which has not yet been fully appreciated

.
That is just a bunch of FUD. 

[maia]

The point is that joomla is the core the extensions are the value.

That is just absurd.  You are basically saying that Joomla! has no value.

 

No, it's not absurd. I think you didn't understand what he meant because you probably don't understand much of IT stuff. The core is essential, the basis of it all. Extensions add value to the core. Imagine windows with/without office for refference 

Security is not the issue -- availability is.

Wrong.  Security is of the upmost importantance. 

Nope, both have the same importance. In fact you're comparing apples to oranges here. As a developer you should know that.

But anyway, you're misreading everything. Vision is not saying availability is more important than security, that's not the case. All he's saying is that this problem has a main reason: availability. Get it ?

The developer has to take responsibility, they have the ability to list or not list their extensions.

 

It looks like someone else also has this ability .... 

In the future it would be better if extensions were not put on the JED site but independently hosted, controlled and mirrored.
If joomla have another bust up (like the mambo/joomla fracas) then we could finish up losing not only the core but also the extensions. This is a major credibitlity/security issue the significanace of which has not yet been fully appreciated

.
That is just a bunch of FUD. 

That is just a bunch of .... FUD.... nice escape huh ?

[MMMedia]

Come on now, how hard is it really for a developer to keep their contact details up to date?  Really is that asking too much? 

If the project is deemed as one that is not being actively developed or supported anymore it has no place on the JED.  If a project has a known security issue it has no place on the JED.  It really is that simple.