[RFC] Rewriting sade(8)

[Ivan Voras]

On 04/08/10 14:01, Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
> Alexander Leidinger <Alexander at Leidinger.net> writes:
>> I think this is more complicated than to refactor the interesting part
>> into a backend with an API which both tools can use. This would also
>> allow someone to write a GUI program (e.g. for PC-BSD).
> 
> There have been at least three or four attempts to do this in the past.
> One of them was even fully funded by the FreeBSD Foundation.  They all
> failed.

Since I was involved in one of them (not the Foundation-funded one,
though; who got that? I don't remember seeing an announcement), I'll
attempt to share some of my experiences.

One experience is that, unless both components (the backend and the
front-end) are done, nobody will use either.

The second, that it's apparently a given that the backend must be
written in C to be imported into base - this is a large obstacle for
doing something that, I think, by definition should be scriptable.
Apparently noone was/is interested in a Python backend :(

Third, I feel that using a RPC-like network protocol - in my case
XML-RPC was/is a good idea but it also received too little comments and
interest.

Fourth, it's bloody hard doing open-source development unless you have
external funding.