ZCIP availability

Hi all,

I'm pleased to let you know that the ZCIP package is available again.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/zeroconf/

Last year Brad Hards withdraw it from the site, while considering
the patents claim by Apple. Someone posted a message telling that
these patents have expired. I contacted Apple, to get confirmation
if that was the case. After some pushing, I indeed got a mail
back confirming this.

At that time, I asked Brad to put ZCIP back on-line. We had
some problem with the release system permissions, so it only showed
up yesterday in the files section (I put it in CVS two weeks ago).

In the mean time, Brad told me that he was too busy and asked me
to step in. So I did. To be honest, I fear I don't have much more
time, but at least I try to keep it up-to-date by incorporating
patches submitted by others. However, I will only watch after the
ZCIP package, not after the tmdns package. I hope someone else
will still look into that.

I like to get some community feedback on a couple of things.
First of all -- who's active? I noticed there are two "admins" of the 
zeroconf project: Brad Hards and Zhendong Yu, and two "developers": 
Andreas Hofmeister and me (Freek Dijkstra).

Second -- when I first looked into ZCIP, about a month and half ago, I 
noticed the many SourceForge sections which are just not in use: 
Developers Forum (no msg since april 2001), Help Forum (1 msg since Oct 
2001), Support Tracker (one request, two years old), Patches Tracker (no 
submissions), Feature Request Tracker (no submissions), 
zeroconf-discussion list (1 msg, 2.5 yrs old), Task list (3 items by 
Brad, never completed), Docs (none), Screenshots (none), News (nothing).
To a first time visitor, this looks like a dead project. In my opinion, 
it would be better to only show the active sections: zeroconf-workers 
list, CVS, Files, one tracker (combined bugs/feature requests).
I like to hide the other sections. I like to hear any comment or 
objections. If there is any objection, I just keep those sections active 
(note: nothing is deleted, there are only hidden for visitors).

Third -- I like to make a list of known patches for ZCIP. Currently I 
will use the patches made by the Debian ZCIP package as a starting 
point, but I noted some feedback on this list already. However, I'm a 
bit fearful to change too much (I'm mostly used to Java, PHP and Pascal, 
not C programming, and I don't want to inadvertedly introduce memory 
leaks or security bugs). My main lead will be the RFC itself (which is 
not yet out, there were still some last-minute discussions today on the 
zeroconf IETF list).

Fourth -- I like to make a statement regarding patent claims as project 
developer. However, I think I better bring that up in a seperate mail.

Last, I like to thank everyone who so far has done the work on ZCIP (at 
lease Sebastian Kuzminsky, David Brownell and Brad Hards according to 
the README and Changelog), but also Anibal Monsalve Salazar, who kept 
the source alive in a Debian package. I know of two other open source 
versions (the one by Arthur von Hoff and the one by Apple, though I 
haven't looked into the later; I'm told the code is in the bootp package 
of Darwin). Last, thanks to Stuart Cheshire for his efforts with the RFC.

With kind regards,
Freek Dijkstra


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