TrueNAS CORE Community Edition

General Discussion
41

You.

42

I am proposing that if a ‘community edition’ or ‘community help’ is offered then organization needs to happen (see a few posts up). I am saying that a proposal (a heavy-handed one) should not be developed until iX says they’d humor one. I propose to start very light (like documentation level) and work up a relationship. I am saying these things are complicated and need to be talked about, but no one seems to say anything other than: “these things should be discussed” or “walk the walk”. …well, if people want to offer help. start talking!

I’m saying that, saying ‘we need to talk but not talking’ or ‘talk is cheap’ is crazy so, I’ll talk/walk: I’ll start with some simple man page additions. Will iX accept them?

43

It’s the other way around dude. Has always been.
Documentation? Already there.
Community guides? Already there.
You want a more Community Edition? Start making code they can pull or, of you don’t want their approval, branch.

Point is, up to this day none has publically revealed any real (read as plublished code) intention to help or take over iX.

44

So we don’t get organized, they do?

45

Organization needs to happen if we want a CORE 13.4 without iX’s grace.

46

In that case I think it would be best if you first created the proposed community documentation. You can host it yourself on GitHub or elsewhere.

If this community edition would gain traction then you can approach iX if they would agree to make it official.

But I think you do it in reverse. You are trying to get iX to promise something or give statements about something that doesn’t even exist yet.

47

TrueNAS Docs are on github for anyone to contribute…
truenas/documentation at 13.3 (github.com)

image
image1862×1700 408 KB

2 Likes
48

Without?! This is talk about a community edition (in conjunction or with help from); -i.e. they would just include items in their build. 13.4 is a little ambitious!

Again, I hear what you’re saying but I’m not asking for them to agree to anything other than would they accept proposals to include items to their build or would the builds have to be made and hosted elsewhere (whereas it would be a hard-fork and not a ‘community help’ type of thing). I am not asking for anything complicated or ridiculous; I am only saying the repository will be–if not already–locked for a 13.3. Would they humor a 13.3.1?

I am saying a ‘community thing’ is difficult and needs to be thought out but that is moot if they (iX) will not even look at any future proposals from the community.

49

Create a pull request?
Pull requests ¡ truenas/middleware (github.com)

1 Like
50

…I’m out.

Did I all of a sudden start typing in a different language?

51

It’s been said on more than one occasion in the forums, and if you read the docs on the Gihub repos they encourage pull requests and have provided instructions on how to format them. I’m not sure what else you would want? No one’s going to promise to merge in bad code, but I doubt anyone would turn away good.

52

Okay, so let me get this straight, you are proposing an individual effort(s) and NOT a community thing (like what kris has said has very rarely happened)?

So we just willy-nilly each pick an item to improve and we just go about our merry way?

53

What? If you have a group of people with the abilities and the time to contribuite in an organic manner, please feel free to do so.
Otherwise, please contibute with what you can do.

Your “Let’s contribute as a community” feels very much as a “Hey people, wake up and do something for me”. At least to me.

54

Wait?! I’m not the one proposing a ‘community thing’!! I’m the one saying that it will be difficult to form a ‘community’ (a group of people all working towards a common goal) let alone a common goal. You guys are saying things like: “docs are there what else do you want” or “create a pull request” or “it will be hard”.

I would help out towards a *SIMPLE* community goal. BUT there needs to be: 1. a goal. 2. a group of people.

55

I need sleep. :melting_face:

3 Likes
56

*face-palm*
If even discussing about how hard doing a community thing would be, is this difficult I’d hate to imagine how difficult it will be choosing an actual goal will be.

Extremely sad because I feel like “everybody can contribute on some level” but this was like trying to make a pile of water.

1 Like
57

I’m not sure what you are looking for as a response, or from who. A community effort is literally, by definition, nothing more than a group of otherwise unaffiliated individuals who contribute to a project.

You’re welcome to try to organize people, issue PRs, and otherwise do whatever you’d like to TrueNAS CORE. It’s open source.

58

Yeah, thanks. We do that on “the git” right?

And if you ever want to know what I’m looking for feel free to scroll up.

59

To be honest, I’m not sure what you want.

  • A fork that just takes what’s there and goes in whatever direction?
  • An iX-managed project that mostly consists of community work?
  • An iX project with meaningful dev time from them but more community involvement?
  • Something else?

I, for one, would much prefer to not see the abandonment of TrueNAS Core. But this thread is weird, the terminology used is all over the place and some people seem to misunderstand the situation in terms of how the code is open.

I’ll provide a goal: port the Scale middleware to Core. It should not be fundamentally difficult, but there are a few things to be aware of:

  • It’s a reasonably complex project, written in Python.
  • FreeBSD is not a tier 1 platform for Python. I suspect this is not likely to be a serious issue.
  • I doubt the Scale version is a mere fast-forward away, but the impression I get is that the architecture is fundamentally the same, but further along the development path.
  • Some elements may have dependencies on custom patched versions of stuff in FreeBSD. The patches should all be in the repo, but that is extra work.
  • The Core GUI might not like the updated middleware. The REST API is probably a better development target as a first step, before trying to get the Scale GUI working.
2 Likes
60

Okay, let’s try it this way. Given (for this explanation ONLY) the goal is to port the scale middleware to core. That would not be a simple task by any stretch but let’s say we start down that path.

I am saying that if there was any, ANY chance for a community effort there needs to be:

  1. a goal. <–for this explanation, we’ve just created.
  2. a team (and roles, definitions, and scope).
  3. do the work.
    But more importantly, an “agreement” from iX to at least discuss possible pushes/patches etc… Just a nod or a push in direction, or a “sure” because any one of one thousand reasons could derail the effort at any point.

So, let’s say we’ve started the work, and it took 5 people 15 months. We push the code back to iX and they refuse to even look at it. How do you feel at this point?

Right now, the goal being port scale gui to core is a monster task, but we do not know the whole story, iX does. Wouldn’t you like a “nod”/“push”/“helpful point” from the original authors–the engineers who did this full time, every day–before forming a group and starting a task?

So, now that we’ve got a goal of porting the scale gui to core. Let’s skip the step of talking to the author (and maybe find out if that would even be possible! …which it’s not) and move on to sign up. Who’s on board?

*To do anything (anything: make bread, get milk, make a cake), you need three pieces of information. Project, scope, budget. Start defining. *