wicd is back from the dead

dl1ps · 2024-09-15 14:50:38

good news everyone - wicd is back!

It was forked on launchpad by a user called hanaguro. He was working very hard on wicd python 3 port during this summer on his repo:

https://git.launchpad.net/~hanaguro/wicd/

Today I cloned the repo and was able installing wicd with following steps:

- installed all libnotify packets via synaptic (search and install them all)
- apt-install python3-urwid

and then used the installer in the main directory:

- python3 setup.py configure
as root:
- python3 setup.py install

works as a charm on daedalus and I am happy like a child :-) Now I have to find out how to thank hanaguro ...

Last edited by dl1ps (2024-09-15 15:01:20)

Altoid · 2024-09-15 15:38:34

Hello:

dl1ps wrote:

... happy like a child ...

That > | makes > | two > | of > | us!

And probably many more.
I know four members from Dev1.

dl1ps wrote:

... how to thank hanaguro ...

I'm not sure but it seems (?) hanaguro may be Takahiro Yoshizawa's handle.
(see authors list to the right of the page)

He is the author (launchpad) of every commit from 2024-06-05 onwards.
He has been busy,

dl1ps wrote:

Now I have to find out how to thank hanaguro ...

I had an UbuntuOne account from long ago and logged in but found no way to contact the chap.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Best,

A.

Last edited by Altoid (2024-09-15 15:39:15)

golinux · 2024-09-15 17:36:41

Thanks for the wonderful news! Would be nice to find a way to get it into the Devuan repos. Anyone up to taking that on? I'll also contact Andreas Messer as he made efforts to port it some years ago.

Micronaut · 2024-09-15 21:12:18

As with all 'volunteer' contributions these days, I would recommend caution. Has it been audited? Something like this runs with root privs, doesn't it?

dl1ps · 2024-09-16 15:59:09

WiCd consists of two parts. A daemon which is performing all tasks and a user-interface. The daemon is running on root privileges, whereas the user-interface is running with low user privileges. Communication is established through dbus.

Concerning the topic of code review: In the open source space this is the job of the maintainer. As understood, the current maintainer of WiCd is Andreas Messer. WiCd has been out there for long time and Andreas seems to have inherited the burden of maintainership. With low efforts he has done good. As far as I can see from the commits, the python 3 porting of the daemon as well as the ncourses user-interface was done by him. As the GTK lib of the python 2 implementation was not ported to python 3, he struggled hard porting also this important part of wicd. This work was finally done by Takahiro Yoshizawa. Takahiro Yoshizawa also repaired the install scripts - actually I did not managed to get Andreas work installed on devuan.

Hoping that Takahiro Yoshizawa will donate his work to the official branch of wicd, I hope that Andreas will accept the code for mainline. Of course after reviewing it addressing security aspects. IMHO the license is the first curcial thing to be clarified and I hope that Andreas is able to contact Takahiro Yoshizawa in this regard. Maybe they are already in contact.

JWM-Kit · 2024-09-16 19:46:41

Great news!

dl1ps · 2024-09-16 20:50:42

hanaguro is also active on Github:
https://github.com/hanaguro/wicd

Altoid · 2024-09-16 23:18:05

Hello:

dl1ps wrote:

... that Takahiro Yoshizawa will donate his work to the official branch ...
... that Andreas will accept the code for mainline.

I don't have much of a clue as to all that would entail.
eg: with respect to the person listed as the owner of the project or the people listed as active members of the 'Wicd-devel' team.

Andreas Messer joined in 09/2021 and started to work on the WiCD project which, to all intents and purposes, had been dead-in-the-water since the bugfixing release (1.7.3 - 12/2014) authored by Pieter Leclerc who, for whatever reason, is not listed as a member of the team.

Things probably got complicated for Andreas and in spite of all his efforts nothing much happened till now but in all fairness, he seems to be the only active member of the WiCD project since 04/2012 with the release of 1.7.2 by David Paleino.
ie: over 12 years ...

With the publishing of the python2 -> python3 work done by Takahiro Yoshizawa, WiCD is now back in the spotlight.
Kudos to him for that.

Hopefully, the WiCD project will soon be put under new management (or forked?) and, in time, recover its place in the Debian/Devuan repositories.

And in all my Devuan installations, where it is sorely missed.

Best,

A.

Last edited by Altoid (2024-09-16 23:27:26)

golinux · 2024-09-16 23:48:22

Andreas Messer is no stranger to Devuan. He often came to our weekly meets.

This link was one of the last times that we heard from him but if you poke the archives and git you will find more . . .
https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/message/2 … d8.en.html

Altoid · 2024-09-17 00:22:42

Hello:

golinux wrote:

Andreas Messer is no stranger to Devuan.

Or to me ... 8^)
We exchaged quite a few emails with respect to WiCD and testing back in 2022.

Best,

A.

ralph.ronnquist · 2024-09-17 00:27:27

Nothing stopping another developer (to be?) to stand up and be counted.

As wicd is forked by Devuan, the process could be to 1) get an account at git.devuan.org, 2) fork the devuan/wicd project for updating to working form (on branch suites/unstable), and then 3) issue a merge-request... all while concurrently getting a dialogue with Andreas going.

It would then be useful to also clone hanaguro's project as an additional "remote" for the workspace, so as to easily be able to match up their changes against Devuan's history. Doing so would have the additional advantage of getting that code away from Microsoft's (github) control.

Altoid · 2024-09-17 01:20:01

Hello:

ralph.ronnquist wrote:

Nothing stopping another developer (to be?) to stand up ...

I guess not.

But the fact is that between the last release by a member of the WiCD project team and Andreas' starting to work on it, over 12 years passed.

We can shorten that to 7 if we count Pieter Leclerc's contribution (not listed as a team member) by releasing 1.7.3 (12/2014) and squashing ~30 bugs. That was his only (albeit very valuable) contribution.

But that is it, no one else till Andreas stepped up.
There is even a request for membership dating from 2021 still pending approval.

What I fail to understand is the lack of communication from the owner/members of the WiCD project team.
eg:
We do not have any time or willingness to further develop/maintain WiCD and as a result the project will be permanently archived as of mm/yyyy.
If interested in continuing development/maintenance of the WiCD project, please contact us so we can transfer the licence and control of the code/repository.

ralph.ronnquist wrote:

... advantage of getting that code away from Microsoft's (github) control.

Indeed.
Would be a very good thing the whole thing moved away from github.

Best,

A.

Last edited by Altoid (2024-09-17 01:22:09)

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#1 2024-09-15 14:50:38

wicd is back from the dead

#2 2024-09-15 15:38:34

Re: wicd is back from the dead

#3 2024-09-15 17:36:41

Re: wicd is back from the dead

#4 2024-09-15 21:12:18

Re: wicd is back from the dead

#5 2024-09-16 15:59:09

Re: wicd is back from the dead

#6 2024-09-16 19:46:41

Re: wicd is back from the dead

#7 2024-09-16 20:50:42

Re: wicd is back from the dead

#8 2024-09-16 23:18:05

Re: wicd is back from the dead

#9 2024-09-16 23:48:22

Re: wicd is back from the dead

#10 2024-09-17 00:22:42

Re: wicd is back from the dead

#11 2024-09-17 00:27:27

Re: wicd is back from the dead

#12 2024-09-17 01:20:01

Re: wicd is back from the dead

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