[hobbit] Future of Hobbit

[Axel Beckert]

Hi,

On Thu, Jan 24, 2008 at 11:06:50PM +0100, Henrik Stoerner wrote:
> > What about Windows? As far as I heard, the only current Windows client
> > for hobbit is BBWin.
> 
> Correct. I've been contacted by a fellow who was interesting in doing a
> Windows port of the Hobbit server. I've encouraged him to look into it,
> but also made it clear that I cannot help with Windows programming.

Ok. For us, a working Windows XP and Vista client is important, but
there seem to be a few around.

> > coworkers also managed to install the Debian packages also run on
> > Ubuntu, so I would expect that the Debian packages will find there way
> > into Ubuntu and derivatives.
> 
> I believe the Ubuntu folks have picked up the Debian package for
> inclusion into the next release, "Hardy" 2008.04.
> https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/+source/hobbit

Yeah, the package version number looks a lot like the original Debian
package. Cool!

> > Ack, but be warned that (at least AFAIK) if you want to link GNU GPL
> > licensed software with OpenSSL, you do need the explicit allowance of
> > the OpenSSL authors. 
> 
> Actually, it's the other way around. If you look at the Hobbit README,
> it says this:
> 
>       Hobbit is Open Source software, made available under the
>       GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2, with the explicit
>       exemption that linking with the OpenSSL libraries is permitted.

Ok, forgot, that you already use OpenSSL for the HTTPS and other
SSL-using tests. :-)

> That last sentence is copied almost verbatim from the OpenSSL FAQ
> http://www.openssl.org/support/faq.html#LEGAL2:
> 
>       2. Can I use OpenSSL with GPL software ?
> 
>       If you develop open source software that uses OpenSSL, you may 
>       find it useful to choose an other license than the GPL, or state 
>       explicitly that "This program is released under the GPL with the 
>       additional exemption that compiling, linking, and/or using 
>       OpenSSL is allowed."

Ok, I really remembered it the other way 'round. Thanks for
clarification! :-)

[Statistics]
> So Nagios is still ahead of Hobbit, but I am actually quite pleased that
> Hobbit has a 5% market share :-)

Ack!

For Debian and Ubuntu, there are the popcon (popularity contest) statistics:

http://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=hobbit
http://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=hobbit-client
http://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=hobbit-plugins

I haven't found any per-package statistics page for Ubuntu, but you
can easily extract the relevant data from what is offered on the
website:

GET http://popcon.ubuntu.com/by_inst.gz | zcat | egrep '^#rank|hobbit'
#rank name                            inst  vote   old recent no-files (maintainer)
34301 hobbit                             8     4     4     0     0 (Unknown)
35099 hobbit-client                      7     3     4     0     0 (Unknown)
53687 hobbit-plugins                     1     0     0     0     1 (Unknown)

GET http://popcon.debian.org/by_inst.gz | zcat | egrep '^#rank|hobbit'
#rank name                            inst  vote   old recent no-files (maintainer)
16769 hobbit-client                     70    62     3     5     0 (Christoph Berg)
21642 hobbit                            33    31     1     0     1 (Christoph Berg)
23141 hobbit-plugins                    26     1     0     0    25 (Christoph Berg)
83984 wmaker-hobbit-.-theme              1     0     0     0     1 (Not in sid)

So you have about 70 client and 33 server installations on Debian (of
which probably 4 servers and about 20 clients and plugin packages and
are ours :-) and 7 in Ubuntu.

Interestingly there are more Ubuntu hobbit servers than clients
although at least in Debian the hobbit server depends on the hobbit
client and can be installed without. Strange. Maybe some not official
packages.

Well, I guess the Debian hobbit-client statistics will shoot up when
we start deploying the hobbit client to our about 170 Debian
workstations and a bunch of servers. :-) Currently one of my coworkers
is preparing the new hobbit server...

> > A STARTTLS command as with many other protocols would be cool, so no
> > new port would be needed. (OTOH, it makes debugging less easier...)
> 
> No, STARTTLS is the "right" way of doing it, and the one I have been
> looking at.

Perfect! :-)

		Kind regards, Axel Beckert
-- 
Axel Beckert <beckert at phys.ethz.ch>       support: +41 44 633 2668
IT Support Group, HPR E 86.1              voice:   +41 44 633 4189
Departement Physik, ETH Zurich            fax:     +41 44 633 1239
CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland		  http://nic.phys.ethz.ch/