Is Typesetter abandoned?

[LeeUnd]

I can't find anywhere to get hold of somebody for help. I have the cms downloaded from here but no where to ask questions.

[mahotilo]

Please have a look at Typesetter Forum

[LeeUnd]

I did. What is "gp|Easy"?

[mahotilo]

This is the old name for the CMS. You can find it everywhere in the code.

[LeeUnd]

Why haven't there been any updates over the past few years?

[LorenzoAncora]

Is Typesetter abandoned? […] Why haven't there been any updates over the past few years?

Good questions. We are on a social coding platform so let's ask the developers.
@oyejorge , @juek is Typesetter destined to obsolescence or there will be another official release in the near future?

[LorenzoAncora]

@oyejorge, @juek ok, 23 days had passed so we may conclude something happened to the devs.

There are two forks:

• Typesetter 5.3 for PHP 8;
• Typesetter 5.2 for PHP 7.

Both unofficial forks are currently maintained and up-to-date. 👋🏻

[oyejorge]

Would someone like to take over?

[LorenzoAncora]

Would someone like to take over?

@oyejorge if you want to abandon development (regardless of the reason), you can transfer the project to me. I am an ex-administrator of the Free Software Foundation's Free Software Directory and the founder of the Free Software Database (fswdb.eu): I will take care of the repositories in your place and create a new dedicated website, ensuring that the project remains free and independent for the upcoming years.

[oyejorge]

I appreciate the offer and I'm not opposed. Do any other contributors have thoughts on this: @gtbu, @g7sim @mahotilo?

[mahotilo]

All I want is for TS to be continuously updated without sacrificing its stability. Despite my active participation in the latest TS updates, I am hardly a person capable of maintaining its further development. So I'll warmly welcome anyone who can do it as well as you and @juek could.

[gtbu]

My fork at github.com/gtbu is up to date (php 8.1): What will Lorenzo Ancora do : A look at his repository doesnt give the impresssion that he understands the code. He may write some plugins first - to work in !!!!
The other thing is the download from Typesettercms.com : The plugins are old (and some have bugs and dont function !) - and i was banned for some days when i added updated versions.

• I propose that He should make a fork and show how to add scssphp 10.4 ( i know how to do : My plan ist jquery-ui 13.2 -> newest elfinder with different skin -> Scssphp 1.10 -> css-crsuh-integration -> Bootstrap5 -> php 8.2....) - but i have not much time and will just sustain the CMS (it is GNU 2)

[LorenzoAncora]

All I want is for TS to be continuously updated without sacrificing its stability. Despite my active participation in the latest TS updates, I am hardly a person capable of maintaining its further development. So I'll warmly welcome anyone who can do it as well as you and @juek could.

@mahotilo I can guarantee that all updates will be stable and well tested, ensuring the reliability of Typesetter over time. This project will receive all the attention and quality control free software deserves.

---

What will Lorenzo Ancora do : A look at his repository doesnt give the impresssion that he understands the code. He may write some plugins first - to work in !!!!

@gtbu I think you've been confused by the interface of GitHub: that is just a clone I've used to write an Italian translation and all the code you saw was entirely the original code written by the original authors.

My policy is to pursue stability and fend off obsolescence, with steady updates to respect the web standards, ensuring user requests and code submissions are evaluated and satisfied, expanding the user base and so on, all respecting the original style and purpose of the project.

[LeeUnd]

I would like to view the demo, which does not work at the present. (It's been a while since I used it.)

[oyejorge]

To start, why don't we add @gtbu, @mahotilo and @LorenzoAncora as members of the organization? That should at least help solve the problem of having unmerged forks and pull-requests. Does that sound like an ok way to move forward?

[mahotilo]

I would call @Sestowner for discussion. He is a valuable contributor and author of the most recent commits. I wish he could respond.

[mahotilo]

It would be an honour for me to become a member of the TS organization. But, I am not proficient in GitHub, and JS, PHP are kind of a hobby for me. So, I would like to stay with restricted rights in TS and limit myself to supervised pull requests. If I want, I can always make an experimental mess in my own fork :)
As a dedicated member of the TS community, I want to see a responsible and experienced administrator(s) who will follow all standards of open source and collaborative development. Someone has to be a TS evangelist.

[LorenzoAncora]

[…] I am not proficient in GitHub, and JS, PHP are kind of a hobby for me. So, I would like to stay with restricted rights in TS and limit myself to supervised pull requests. […] I want to see a responsible and experienced administrator(s) who will follow all standards of open source and collaborative development. Someone has to be a TS evangelist.

@mahotilo being also an ex-webmaster of the GNU Project, I can be considered a free software evangelist and I am experienced with free software development projects which are heterogeneous in both competences and ideals. Under my lead, Typesetter will remain a community project which respects all standards of free and open source software development.
My stepping-up as project owner will attract new volunteers and the work of each contributor will always be cross-checked for validity before becoming part of the codebase. The free software communities I belong will participate in the work of revision and continuous improvement and the GNU community of volunteers, with which I keep a periodic exchange of favours and knowledge, will help ensure proper assistance for the end users even in times of crisis.

---

To start, why don't we add @gtbu, @mahotilo and @LorenzoAncora as members of the organization? That should at least help solve the problem of having unmerged forks and pull-requests. Does that sound like an ok way to move forward?

@oyejorge my experience is that after so much time a gradual process would only lead to a failed transition. I'm expending time here because this is one of the rare occasions in which a free software project can be saved without too much trouble, otherwise its destiny is to be dissipated into a myriad of small, unmaintained forks and then become totally obsolete. You won't easily find other developers with specific experiences and communities behind them, especially willingly to take over a project which is in state of abandonment and accept all the responsibilities and expenses behind it.
As a consequence, I am offering exclusively to step-up directly as the new owner of the project, to ease you and juek of your burden and make sure the project remains free and does not incur in obsolescence during the upcoming years, thanks to a careful work of administration, comprehensive policies and solid development processes. If you transfer the project to me, it will remain a communitarian free software project, managed professionally for the good of the free software community: I will call other skilled volunteers and form a new dedicated, well-organized team, which will be more specialized and will also include the volunteers currently present. This will be a long process which will require a huge amount of work, e-leadership and patience on my side. If you have taken the decision of entrusting it to me, please proceed, so I can prepare and be ready by the end of the week, as making good use of time means keeping more end users and more interested volunteers.

[gtbu]

What should first be done here at this git is the integration of pushes. The version here still supports php5.6 , which is a hinderance for updating to my php7-fork.

The next problem is the further direction and not only updates and stability : I found that phpunit and scrutinizer are not sufficient and eliminated further bugs in my stable(!) forks at github.com/gtbu (in 2021with phpstorm and plugins).
One problem will be the integration of coming scssphp 2.0 (dart) which has several final-tags and therefore a conflict with scss.php ( class Scss extends \ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Compiler{ ....) - not so easy to solve !

LorenzoAncora ...destiny is to be dissipated into a myriad of small, unmaintained forks : Not really many forks. I have a similar problem with my clean-url Cmsimple XC (github.com/g7sim) which the developers were not able to clean and preferred tinymce (now the professionals would prefer ckeditor...but give me no 'likes'). The other problem are the very old plugins which are not GNU. My php8.1 fork is stable - but it anybody can make a fork of it.
I personally am not a professional programmer , but with 'meditative intuition' i have come so far. I am too busy with mediawiki and my spiritwiki.de. My sorrow is, that this git will be given up before php11. @oyejorge may decide.

[oyejorge]

@LorenzoAncora I really appreciate your enthusiasm and you're absolutely right, this will be long process. I'm more than happy to provide you with all the necessary access within the Typesetter organization to accomplish your goals (commits, pull-request approval, adding members, changing website, ....). Or are opposed to anything short of being given full ownership?

I should add that full ownership isn't out of the question, I just think the community would like to see more before making the change.

[LorenzoAncora]

@LorenzoAncora I really appreciate your enthusiasm and you're absolutely right, this will be long process. I'm more than happy to provide you with all the necessary access within the Typesetter organization to accomplish your goals (commits, pull-request approval, adding members, changing website, ....). Or are opposed to anything short of being given full ownership?

@oyejorge due to the long crisis there are thousands of free software that risk abandonment and the competition for maintainers is very high, because when free software becomes obsolete, proprietary software developers often manage to steal its share of end users. Forming a new team requires that I become the owner of the organization, so that the new members are aware that they are under my tutelage and that their contributions are therefore put to good use by those who know the free software community, both from the social and strategical point of views, because there are well-defined ideals and ethics to respect in free software development.
If you want me to employ my time and the time of the other free software volunteers (which is precious, as it will be taken from other free software projects in favour of yours), to take responsibility for maintaining and developing Typesetter over the years, to form a team of volunteers from my communities, etc., you need to transfer ownership of the organization, which will then be reformed to ensure its survival in the upcoming years.

I should add that full ownership isn't out of the question, I just think the community would like to see more before making the change.

The community you refer to is a single user who, having an interest in bringing visibility to their forks, does not hesitate to oppose an advantageous change in the main project. On the other hand, it is inevitable that the resumption of development under a different administration leads to a reduction in the importance of forks and that my stable development policy is not appreciated by those who only want cutting-edge technologies. However, the target end users of a CMS are those who want to simplify their lives and have as little as possible to deal with unstable technologies, so the duty of those who develop a CMS is first of all to guarantee reliability over time and prevent obsolescence.
The first weeks of August are the best time to face this type of transition, because it is more likely for me to find volunteers who just left other bigger projects and are willing to join smaller ones.

[oyejorge]

Sorry @LorenzoAncora, I'm trying to work with you to find a compromise but the all-or-nothing approach you're taking does not give me reassurance.

[LorenzoAncora]

Sorry @LorenzoAncora, I'm trying to work with you to find a compromise but the all-or-nothing approach you're taking does not give me reassurance.

@oyejorge I won't take the responsibility of Typesetter without a full transfer of ownership.
What I can do is take some time to reassure you: if it requires less than 1 hour, I'll be glad to sacrifice this time to give you the reassurance you demanded.

[oyejorge]

@LorenzoAncora If you don't want to work with us on this, I'd say the best bet is for you to start a new project (create a fork of Typesetter and detach it for full autonomy). Then you can do everything you want.

[LorenzoAncora]

@LorenzoAncora If you don't want to work with us on this, I'd say the best bet is for you to start a new project (create a fork of Typesetter and detach it for full autonomy). Then you can do everything you want.

@oyejorge I never wrote that I don't want to work with you.

You wrote:

I should add that full ownership isn't out of the question, I just think the community would like to see more before making the change.

Then, what should I do to be considered "worthy"? Do you have a request for me?
If it takes less than 1 hour I will do it so your doubts will be dissipated.

[mahotilo]

First, a simple question to @LorenzoAncora. Why doesn't your fswdb.eu freeware database include TS?

[LorenzoAncora]

First, a simple question to @LorenzoAncora. Why doesn't your fswdb.eu freeware database include TS?

@mahotilo thanks for your question: fswdb.eu / fswdb.com is a public database of free software.
It does not contain freeware, shareware and abandonware, only 11493 entries consisting in libre software, firmware and assets.
Typesetter is not included because it wasn't yet subject to evaluation and cannot currently be included because it is abandoned, and hence potentially dangerous to use in a public web environment. Of course, right after taking in charge the project, since it will stop being considered abandoned, I'll organize with the other volunteers to evaluate and add it, as a priority task.

[mahotilo]

I have searched for CMS. The first result is Website@School. Its last release was on 2016-06-29.
Sorry, I do not think you are sincere with us. And your one-hour rush looks more and more suspicious to me.
I do not know what is behind this rush. Might be some kind of fundraising.

[oyejorge]

@LorenzoAncora

I never wrote that I don't want to work with you.

You wrote:

If you want me to employ my time .... you need to transfer ownership of the organization

and

I won't take the responsibility of Typesetter without a full transfer of ownership

I've tried to give you everything short of full ownership but you won't compromise. If you want full ownership, fork it.

[LorenzoAncora]

I have searched for CMS. The first result is Website@School. Its last release was on 2016-06-29.
Sorry, I do not think you are sincere with us. And your one-hour rush looks more and more suspicious to me.
I do not know what is behind this rush. Might be some kind of fundraising.

@mahotilo now you are being offensive with a person which offered you a very generous hand. The database is in Beta and also contains software with historical value that is not yet marked as such and is destined to a distinct collection aimed at educating the children. Now, I've updated Website@School to reflect the fact that it is Obsolete. With 11493 entries to manage, you should expect some minor oversights. After all, I don't earn a penny, exactly like the other volunteers.

[mahotilo]

@LorenzoAncora, I dare not waste a single second of your precious time. So let me stick with my opinion.
@oyejorge, I will shut up for a while.

[LorenzoAncora]

@LorenzoAncora, I dare not waste a single second of your precious time. So let me stick with my opinion.
@oyejorge, I will shut up for a while.

@mahotilo I didn't see your excuses for calling me a dishonest. Updating a public database only to prove I wasn't some kind of Nigerian scammer wasn't sufficient? In general my help is meet with joy and gratitude. I guess there is a first time for everything, even for receiving a free insult. 🥇
But, next time, please do a deep breath before attempting to damage the good reputation of another person who, in addition, is offering you his help. Just to say.

---

I've tried to give you everything short of full ownership but you won't compromise. If you want full ownership, fork it.

@oyejorge Josh, I've offered my help and the help of my community but it seems you have a very ill opinion. Your associate is even taking the liberty of accusing me of being dishonest and, even after I've proved him wrong, you write nothing in my defence. I think I've been a polite guest, but you aren't reciprocating. jk :-)

Writing of the offer, everything has a price commensurate to the required effort and sacrificing the ownership in exchange of the guaranteed survival of the project is very convenient both for you and for your community. You and your team will remain in the organization and have a much easier life, you will be able to keep contributing exactly as before or simply focus on something else, at your choice.
This was something I had a personal interest in bringing forth, but trying harder to convince a single project owner would mean abusing the trust which was given to me, so I'll try one last time (in the hope that someone won't start insulting me gratuitously).
If you are fully convinced that my offer isn't worth transferring the project I won't insist; if on the other hand, you are willing to grant the ownership, you can also add another condition (eg. leave some project guidelines I'll have to follow or people who should have a certain role) and we meet halfway: I and my community have the ownership of the project but your conditions are included in the repo and respected by everyone until you decide otherwise. Make your proposal and we can find a positive agreement from there.

[oyejorge]

I've tried to give you everything short of full ownership but you won't compromise. If you want full ownership, fork it.

[mckaygerhard]

I appreciate the offer and I'm not opposed. Do any other contributors have thoughts on this: @gtbu, @g7sim @mahotilo?

i do not noted this.. a full onwership its not allowed cos will happened as happened with creator of mpv or ffmpeg, i'm adware of the issues but i think that original creator has the main path here, due the amount of efforts and work .. if someone wants to take in.. must WORK WITH and NOT TAKE IT.. i support the dessition of @oyejorge

in fact its better to use merges from those event try to waste time.. let them work of the main .. what do you think? @oyejorge ? @LorenzoAncora

[oyejorge]

Please stay on topic

[mckaygerhard]

So then @oyejorge @LorenzoAncora why then not write a way of contribution membership? and if you both are so busy .. why not just take some time to analyze the PR and let others know how to push updates here!? i am glad to follow any direction from you guys

[telepath]

I 've used gpeasy for a while years ago, and am still hosting a few sites on one of the forks. I'd definitely like to see the project continued, but I don't have the capacity to contribute.
On this discussion I really don't see the issue. The project already has an organization, so all we'd need in the first step is someone who can join and work on PRs. There really is no reason to kick out the main author, that's what organizations are for.
So as I said: I'd ask if there is anyone who has the capacity to review the PRs and forks, so that people who are able to contribute can get some support.

[LorenzoAncora]

On this discussion I really don't see the issue. The project already has an organization, so all we'd need in the first step is someone who can join and work on PRs. There really is no reason to kick out the main author, that's what organizations are for. [...] I'd ask if there is anyone who has the capacity to review the PRs and forks, so that people who are able to contribute can get some support.

Hi @telepath, maintaining a CMS is a big responsibility which requires a well-balanced team with a single project manager. 🕴🏻 For example, introducing a vulnerability because of a distraction or incomprehension could cause a lot of damage; introducing a bug could lead to data loss; changing a feature in a way the end user doesn't expect might have similar effects. The new EU CRA makes so under certain circumstances open source developers and adopters can be accountable for the flaws in their codebases. In addition, as you saw here GitHub is also a social platform and user moderation requires a proper skillset too, otherwise you end up rubbing people the wrong way, damaging the public image and alienating the potential contributors. However:

Important

My offer is still valid even after all that time: the current owner needs only to transfer project ownership and I will ensure to pay the bills (as you can see from #702 the website is down) and offer proper support through a team of free software volunteers, stopping the userbase from dwindling and hopefully resurrecting the project and keeping it free and open source.

[gtbu]

I think we had this theme . There is also no prove that You have the skills.

• I develop Typesetter at the moment and for further years.
• But You and Your volunteers can write some great plugins and prove their skills

[LorenzoAncora]

[quoting a message which has been edited 5 times 😮‍💨 ]

I develop Typesetter at the moment and for further years.

No, this official repository is currently owned by juek (totally inactive since 2020) and oyejorge (almost inactive since 2022).

@gtbu , you only keep your own forks of dubious security and maintainability. You also seem to own one hostile, unlinked fork: very unethical and very dangerous for the end users.

I think we had this theme . There is also no prove that You have the skills.
But You and Your volunteers can write some great plugins and prove their skills

How bossy! ...but your behaviour is actually harmful to this project.

I'm the owner of the Free Software Database, a platform indexing 11498 free and open source projects, and of other services too.
The latest release of Typesetter was in 2017 and online applications can be considered insecure after 6 months of abandonement.

I've just unlinked Typesetter's official (and dead) website from the platform.
If a new official version of Typesetter is not published within 6 days from now, I will simply catalog it as Obsolete - Unmaintained - Unsafe, specifying that all existing forks are unsafe to use, and go on taking care of the next project. After a while the volunteers will replicate the change in other online services, enforcing coherence. The users will receive a big red warning and will be automatically recommended other equivalent software. Problem solved. ✅

[gtbu]

It made and makes obviously no sense to discuss with You : Everybody uses my fork successfully, which is not unsafe nor hostile.

You may delete the entry from Your Database - i have no problem with that - who reads Your database ?! It doesnt prove any skills to develop Typesetter CMS.

[LorenzoAncora]

Everybody uses my fork successfully, which is not unsafe nor hostile.

Everybody? @gtbu, your unlinked fork has only 10 stars and 6 watchers. Likely your friends and the few people who mistaked it for the official repository.
GitHub is a platform for social coding and all forks which are not clearly identifiable as such with the writing "forked from Owner/Repository" are considered hostile and unsafe to use because they elude the security mechanisms put in place by the platform and its affiliates. Very unethical.

who reads Your database ?!

From 20K to 30K monthly visitors (not counting those from the Onion network), in addition to the volunteers from different free software associations and of course many open source developers.

It doesnt prove any skills to develop Typesetter CMS.

I served the FSF and the GNU Project for many years, gaining many different skills both in terms of community management and of software development. I can understand and fix PHP code and use it in communion with technologies like HTML 5, JS and CSS 3. Of course, only an irresponsible would work on community code without the aid of peer review, so I always have assistants to double-check my work.

This is, however, relevant no more because in 6 days there will be a strong public incentive to transition away from Typesetter toward more up-to-date and thus safer software solutions, removing all reasons to further develop or maintain it.

You may delete the entry from Your Database - i have no problem with that

Typesetter CMS will not be deleted from the Free Software Database, instead it will remain in a read-only state and be marked as Obsolete - Unmaintained - Unsafe. The entry will stay indexed and publicly visible. When visited it will display a security warning related to the application and all its forks, in addition to recommend different libre CMS solutions as more up-to-date replacements.

To prevent the end users from mistaking your hostile fork for the official repository, depending on the later evaluation of the volunteers and on the location of the visitor, directly searching for your hostile fork on the FSWDB and other platforms may show a warning related to PUA (Potentially Unwanted Application). If other hostile/unlinked forks (of any application) are present in your account or in the accounts of the members of any organization managed by you, these may also be included, depending on how they endanger the userbase. Anyway, nothing will be hidden nor deleted.

[mckaygerhard]

@LorenzoAncora err i use the fork of @gtbu (ok only one but its valid as usage ) .. but also end users dont put starts .. just send other to clone and deploys.. you must understand that:

• people that put starts are developers , not end users.. end users only said "my site is working that's all i care"
• the starts here are "old".. i dont think the people that put a start in original repo are using it today!
• i like you take some part here but constant changes are a mess for people that have a life..

i dont know.. umm .. i checked the repo and i cant see any "hostily" part in fact i am more hostile rather him..

i guess there is no harm in backport of merge some of the work somewhere.. with a bit if other eyes .. i dont think we will have security issues

[telepath]

Really, what the heck? The only hostile one here is Lorenzo. gtbu on the other hand is valiantly continuing this project and does a good job. It is true that you can expect everyone who is still actively using Typesetter to be using his fork.
He has a linked fork and an updated version in an extra repository - there is nothing wrong with that!
Furthermore, he is an active contributor here and has kept the software running for years now, and he did that in the best way possible, since the original author does not have the capacity.

@LorenzoAncora on the other hand comes in here demanding to be handed over the project, threatens to publicly discredit the active community and alienates everyone still here.
Please, just leave this project alone. If you really want to help, do it here or make your own fork. Your methods and your style of communication is obviously not appreciated here.

[LorenzoAncora]

@telepath thank you for your opinion, I'll answer to what may still effectively be of any relevance:

He has a linked fork and an updated version in an extra repository - there is nothing wrong with that!

A fork is considered "hostile" when it wasn't created using the correct procedure and cannot therefore be traced back to the original project by both users and automatic security tools. If it does not have the "forked from Typesetter/Typesetter" under its title, then it is called "hostile fork":

Warning

In addition to the aforementioned issues, some consider hostile forks as unethical. A key concept is that the "hostility", however, is not necessarily toward the original project, but toward the members of the free software community who end up using a product which may have unforeseen behaviours and may not meet the expected quality/security standards.

Tip

Regular forks are perfectly legitimate, welcome and universally encouraged in any free software project.