Opensource maskerkeying project proposal - restarted

[Schuyler]

Webapp is good as well.

Personally, if it decided to go with either PHP or Java Servlets/JSP then I'm more than happy to help with some coding.

On the hosting front, I can't offer any space, but I do have a pair of geographically distant (250 miles between them) DNS servers that could be used.

As for peppering with adverts, I think that hosting and bandwith fees could do with recovering, but a fairer way to do that would to only allow people to download the zip/tar file of the webapp and make them host it themselves. That is of course if hosting gets prohibitively costly.

I'll host until my transfer gets used up, and I've got 5296 GB of monthly bandwidth with 32GB more every week. Even if we manage to burn through all of it, I can just pull it down and be operational for any of my other business within a week (as in the course of 3 years I've used little over 5 gigs of it for any given month)

I'd really like to see us not have advertisements involved in this.

[DaveAG]

That is a lot of bandwidth!

Assuming that this doesn't become the next Google, I can't see any problems at all either running a central copy online, or just providing a downloadable copy for others to install.

Getting to more practical questions that need to be decided before people know whether they can help or not:

It needs to be confirmed whether its a webapp or standalone.

What language?

What licence?

[Raccoon]

The idea I had with a web app would be something where the locksmith does the work, and hand-over is done via the website to the client. The client can then manage key control and order more keys by simply visiting the site. It improves customer retention.

[Schuyler]

The idea I had with a web app would be something where the locksmith does the work, and hand-over is done via the website to the client. The client can then manage key control and order more keys by simply visiting the site. It improves customer retention.

Care to elaborate? From the brief description it sounds like the website would only be a conduit of business, not actually generating masterkey systems.

I'd hope that we could be adventurous and go with the random number generator to create unique masterkey systems for any individual.

Locksmith's Key Generation

From: Mike Bardsley, CML
Date: 17 May 2004
[I'm] using random.org to generate new discreet keys for each home or business [I] rekey[s], ensuring that no two customers will ever receive the same key bitting. [...] I'm using the randomized sequence generator. For a 6 six pin lock I enter the first two digits and let the generator pick the rest. ie: 14XXXX There is a Maximum Adjacent Cut Specification (MACS) that varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. For instance, with a Schlage brand lock the maximum useable difference between two adjacent cuts on a key is 7 depths. This means throwing out many numbers generated randomly, but they're very easy to spot on a printed page. I begin using first two pins of 00 and progress them to 99. Even considering the toss outs that will provide me with more key bittings than I will ever need. I've only just begun using this, as I've just discovered your site, but it seems to work really well.

The interesting part will be in how complex a system we can make it build, and what parameters we can put on it to ensure highest security. Things like making the program check 2 bittings against each other to make sure they're dissimilar to a pre-determined degree.

We have a chance to do something intrepid here.

[Raccoon]

No, I'm talking about a full blown keying system. And with every keying system, it will require key control and maintenance. Rather than printing out the key system, keep it online and accessible to the locksmith and client for continued management and future work.

Of course it would be well secured.

[DaveAG]

Rather than be too ambitious from the start, can I suggest we build a list of requirements, both functional and non-functional, and give a priority from 1 to 10.

Then we can take the groups of requirements and group them into modules

And develop a core with defined interfaces and hooks for loadable modules to attach into.

[WhiteHat]

Rather than be too ambitious from the start, can I suggest we build a list of requirements, both functional and non-functional, and give a priority from 1 to 10.

Then we can take the groups of requirements and group them into modules

And develop a core with defined interfaces and hooks for loadable modules to attach into.

I'd definately agree with this approach - this is big/complex enough to need to be run like a proper project. Sourceforge has some neato tools for colaborating on things like this unless the admins here want to add a separate forum area for this.

Would someone volunteer to be project lead and create a sourceforge project?

[DaveAG]

The main reason this needs to be "properly managed", is that there will probably be a number of developers, in different locations and time zones.

Each with different ideas of what the project should be.

We also either need a project leader/manager OR a framework for making decisions, as there will always be "one more point" on any given issue and a way of cutting off discussion and making a decision is needed.

[Schuyler]

Raccoon - I got it now, I misunderstood what you were saying before.

Dave & Whitehat - you two sound like the best choices for project manager I can totally understand if neither of you would want to do it however, but what does a project manager need to do, generally?

[WhiteHat]

but what does a project manager need to do, generally?

exactly what dave said above:

make the final call on the larger issues, keep everyone on-track, be able to summarise discussions, allocate tasks, co-ordinate people.

problem with managing open source projects as opposed to a comercial project is that to start with, the project lead has no authority - they have to build it up - it starts off colaboratively. seeing as I can't even bring myself to be able to spell collaboratively correctly 100% of the time - I here by declare myself unable to lead this project

there's some really good videos floating arround the net that the google team who worked on CVS made, talking about the problems they encountered with their project etc.

I'll work on it as a developer, but not as a lead - I can't justify the time.

[WhiteHat]

here's one:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 1522818645

interesting to watch - even if you're not managing projects or even involved in OSS at all

[Schuyler]

here's one:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 1522818645

interesting to watch - even if you're not managing projects or even involved in OSS at all

watching it now...

[WhiteHat]

there's some really good videos floating arround the net that the google team who worked on CVS made, talking about the problems they encountered with their project etc.

I mean sub-version - not CVS..... I use CVS at work - mixed the two up.

check out the others by the same user on google videos.

[DaveAG]

Dave & Whitehat - you two sound like the best choices for project manager

Cheers for the "nomination"

As Whitehat said, in the very first stages of an opensource project, there is no legitimacy in a project lead, as the project as a whole isn't owned by anyone, and no code has been written. A software company on the other hand simply says "Welcome team, Bob is your manager and you will be desiging then building X" and off they go.

I will still be a computer science student until the evening of the 29th May (when I finish my last exam), so can't really offer much till then.

If people want me to lead this, please say so
If people don't want me to lead this, please say so

If on the 29th the consensus is for me to lead this, I'll accept. If not I will be gracious in defeat and offer to code, design, draw icons etc for whoever the illustrious pickers of this forum deem suitable.

[mh]

I would be quite happy to read about the proceedings of this project, how you recruit programmers who are interested in locks, and so on...

(maybe I can then later re-use some of your strategies for this:
viewtopic.php?t=18719 )

So please go on telling us about it

Cheers,
mh