[tor-dev] Let's talk about Globe/Atlas development this Thu, Sep 11, 14:00 UTC in #tor-dev

[Karsten Loesing]

On 09/09/14 11:00, Karsten Loesing wrote:
> Let's meet on
> 
>   Thursday, September 11, at 14:00 UTC in #tor-dev on OFTC
> 
> and talk about Globe and Atlas development.

Here's a summary of today's meeting.

 - The following people either introduced themselves at the beginning of
the meeting or otherwise contributed to the discussion:
   - william is a front-end (and, to a lesser extent, back-end) web
developer, and maintains a Globe repository on GitHub.
   - baumanno volunteered earlier this year to rewrite Tor Weather, but
got distracted throughout this year's GSoC-effort on that.  He's a
front- and back-end developer and has already contributed code to
william's Globe branch.
   - chingucha suggests tasks like merging Globe and Compass.
   - Sebastian shares his wishlist of Globe tasks which turn out to be
Onionoo tasks.
   - phw currently takes care of Atlas, but his activity is limited to a
bunch of small patches every now and then.
   - arma asks the new Globe maintainers to consider working on a
specific issue.
   - karsten [writing in third person here, but at least mentioning
himself last] is the original author of Onionoo and available to answer
questions about the Onionoo protocol or taking feature requests.

 - william already made some progress on a Globe fork together with
baumanno and others: https://github.com/wpapper/globe.  They fixed the
broken grunt setup which made it very difficult or impossible for a new
contributor to get started developing on Globe.  They worked on more
issues tracked on the GitHub repository.  There is currently no deployed
version of this Globe version available, but it wouldn't be hard to set
up one.

 - baumanno, william, and chingucha discussed two directions for the
next development step:
   1. baumanno suggests working on a Globe version that does not depend
on client-side JavaScript, because that's what the community seems to
want most.  This version could be based on node.js.  Somebody opened
ticket #13131 for this.  rndm, the original Globe author, started work
on a node.js version that is still available at
http://globe-node.herokuapp.com.  william forked the sources at
https://github.com/wpapper/globe-node.  karsten mentions that, without
client-side JavaScript, clients might send original bridge fingerprints
to the server, and that this should be avoided if possible.  Other than
that there are no concerns about switching to server-side JavaScript.
   2. chingucha suggests merging Compass functionality with the Atlas or
Globe successor.  This could be done by extending Globe's JavaScript
code or by extending Compass' Python code.  The latter approach could
make use of OnionPy.  This project would be similar to rndm's GSoC
project that never happened.  The choice for node.js or Python would
depend on how many developers are comfortable with either language.

 - william suggests "Navigator" as working title for the server-side
Globe or combined Globe-and-Compass.

 - william summarizes next steps: 1. make it server-side and merge with
Compass; 2. build a larger team; 3. get development site online.
karsten suggests to do 3 in order to attract people for 2, and then do
the potentially huge task 1.  Also, once these three tasks are done, go
through list of open Atlas/Globe tickets in Tor's Trac.

 - william enumerates the main features of Compass/Globe: relay
listings, statuses/details, search, and graphs.

 - Sebastian shares his wishlist of Globe tasks that turn out to be
Onionoo tasks.  These are now written down in tickets #13135, #13136,
and #13137 and will be handled by karsten.

 - william asks where the repository should be hosted.  karsten suggests
GitHub, because it's a PITA to get accounts for people on Tor's Git
server.  william creates https://github.com/wpapper/navigator.

 - william invites other interested people to contact him via GitHub,
and he'll add them as collaborators.

 - arma asks Globe developers to take a look at #13084.  karsten
suggests to put this on the "Navigator" issues list.