101 lines
7.2 KiB
Markdown
101 lines
7.2 KiB
Markdown
# PDA Project Update
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## Introduction
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Hello PDA community members,
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My name is Matt Scott, and I am the owner of [Azorian Solutions](https://azorian.solutions), a consultancy for the
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Internet Service Provider (ISP) industry. I'm pleased to announce that I have taken ownership of the PDA project and
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will be taking over the lead maintainer role, effective immediately.
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Please always remember and thank both [Khanh Ngo](https://github.com/ngoduykhanh) and
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[Jérôme Becot](https://github.com/jbe-dw) for their efforts in keeping this project alive thus far. Without the effort
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of Khanh creating the PDA project and community, and the efforts of Jérôme for holding up the lead maintainer role after
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Khanh had to step down, this project would not still be alive today.
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With that being said, please read through all the following announcements as they are important if you're an active PDA
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user or community member. I intend to make many great enhancements to the project, but it could be a bumpy road ahead.
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### Project Maintenance
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As it stands today, contributions to the project are at a low. At this point, there is a rather large backlog of issues
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and feature requests in contrast to the current maintenance capacities. This is not to say you should lose hope though!
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As part of this project transition, some additional contribution interest has been generated and I expect to attract
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more with the changes I'm planning to make. In the near future, I may by-pass some usual maintenance processes in order
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to expedite some changes to the project that have been outstanding for some time.
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This is to say however that unless the project attracts a healthy new contribution base, issues may continue to pile up
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as maintenance capacity is rather limited. This is further complicated by the fact that the current code base is harder
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to follow naturally since it largely lacks uniformity and standards. This lack of uniformity has lead to a difficult
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situation that makes implementing certain changes less effective. This status quo is not uncommon with projects born how
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PDA was born, so it's unfortunate but not unexpected.
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### Change of Direction
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In order to reorganize the project and get it on a track to a future that allows it to contend with other commercial
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quality products, I had to make many considerations to the proficiencies of two unique paths forward to achieve this
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goal. One path forward is seemingly obvious, continue maintaining the current code base while overhauling it to shift it
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towards the envisioned goal. The other path is a fresh solution design with a complete rebuild.
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The answer to the aforementioned decision might seem obvious to those of you who typically favor the "don't reinvent the
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wheel" mentality. I'm unclear of the details surrounding the original use-case that drove the development of this
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project, but I don't believe it was on-par with some use-cases we see today which include operators handling many tens
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of thousands of zones and/or records. There are many changes that have been (sometimes) haphazardly implemented which
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has lead to the previously mentioned lack of uniformity among other issues. To put it simply, I'm not sure if the
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project ever had a grand vision per se but instead was mostly reactionary to community requests.
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I believe that the current project has served the community fairly well from what I can tell. I know the product has
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certainly helped me in my professional efforts with many environments. I also believe that it's time to pivot so that
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the project can realize it's true potential, considering the existing user base. For this reason, I am beginning the
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planning phase of a project overhaul. This effort will involve a complete re-engineering of the project's contribution
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standards and requirements, technology stack, and project structure.
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This was not an easy decision to come to but one must appreciate that there aren't as many people that can get very
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excited about working on the current project code base. The current project has many barriers to entry which I intend to
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drastically impact with future changes. The reality is that it's easier to gain contribution participation with a new
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build effort as it offers an opportunity to own a part of the project with impactful contributions.
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### Project Enhancements
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Since this is the beginning of a rebirth of the project so to speak, I want to implement a new operational tactic that
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will hopefully drive contributions through incentive. Many of us understand that any project, needs a leader to stay on
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track and organized. If everything were a democratic process, it would take too long and suffer unnecessary challenges.
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With that being said, I do believe that there is plenty of opportunity through-out various development phases of the
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project to allow for a democratic process where the community contributors and members can participate in the
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decision-making.
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The plan to achieve the aforementioned democratic goal is to centralize communications and define some basic structured
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processes. To do this, more effective methods of communication have been implemented to allow those interested in
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contributing to easily participate in fluid, open communication. This has already been proving to be quite effective for
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exchanging ideas and visions while addressing the issue with contributors living in vastly different time zones. This is
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effectively a private chat hosted by the PDA project using Mattermost (a Slack-like alternative).
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Even if you aren't in a position to directly contribute work to the project, you can still contribute by participating
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in these very important and early discussions that will impact the solution engineering. If the PDA project is an
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important tool in your organization, I encourage you to join the conversation and contribute where applicable your
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use-cases. Having more insight on the community use-cases will only benefit the future of this project.
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If you're interested in joining the conversation, please email me at
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[admin@powerdnsadmin.org](mailto:admin@powerdnsadmin.org) for an invitation.
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### Re-branding
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As part of this project transition, I will also be changing the naming scheme in order to support the future development
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efforts toward a newly engineered solution. The current PDA project will ultimately become known as the "PDA Legacy"
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application. This change will help facilitate the long-term solution to take the branding position of the existing
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solution. Another effort I will be making is to get an app landing page online at the project's new domain:
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[powerdnsadmin.org](https://powerdnsadmin.org). This will act as one more point of online exposure for the project which
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will hopefully lend itself well to attracting additional community members.
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### Contribution Requirements
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Another big change that will be made with the new project, will be well-defined contribution requirements. I realize
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these requirements can be demotivating for some, but they are a necessary evil to ensure the project actually achieves
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its goals effectively. It's important to always remember that strict requirements are to everyone's benefit as they push
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for order where chaos is quite destructive.
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### Closing
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I hope these announcements garner more participation in the PDA community. The project definitely needs more help to
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achieve any goal at this point, so your participation is valued!
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