To begin with, I LOVE LINUXMCE. PLEASE, do not take this as reason to get defensive, offensive, insulting, or expectant of me to do more than my current abilities would permit me to realistically do. Take it for what it is: CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, and SUGGESTION of a means to IMPROVE what I believe needs it, where I, PERSONALLY CANNOT write the code (or change the minds of man) to do so. Believe me, when I'm ready and able, I WILL.
I, awhile back, described (albeit, maybe not very well) how LinuxMCE's Telecom system was broken, on a default install, and how I attempted to upgrade and/or repair it. I succeeded in the end, and posted the info for documentations' sake (and of course, help if and from where it might be available, was welcome), but was CALLED A LIAR (AND SINCE, HAVE HELPED A FEW WHO HAD SIMILAR TROUBLES, with my findings).
As well, I've suggested ideas of adding the functionalities of Multi-WAN Routing, to the firewall / NAT setup. MANY folks have asked about OpenVPN capabilities. My own solution to both has, for quite some time been a (whether physical and seperate, or in virtual machine) system loaded with either pfSense or ZeroShell, that provided both, as there seemed to be nothing with an Ubuntu basis that provided completely. Problem is, they're both troublesome / problematic, all the way around, in VM, and to dedicate an entire machine to either (with no real room for added features / services) seems a complete waste of a box, and the power to run it, particularly to my tight-wad wife (and wallet)...
As well, I've seen vague claims that LinuxMCE handles e-mail, but no sign that it actually does, and many requests on how to make it do so, with no real solutions... The Addressbook is awfully difficult to use, the last I looked or heard, and doesn't integrate with much of anything, outside the LMCE system...
I'm not the only one who sees these issues, I hope. It seems, however, that anytime ANYBODY speaks up about what might be improved, they're given the patent answer, "Either dev it yourself, or STFU and wait until we decide to get around to it..."
I COMPLETELY understand the idea that there are just a few dev's working on this project, and that they can only do so much, in the free time they have in life, and fault NOBODY for it. However, the attitude I speak of has nearly (if not really) DRIVEN FOLKS AWAY. I believe that, in and of itself, to be contrary to the very concepts that drive development / business / life forward.
I've RTFMed, and told the ID10Ts to do so, when I felt it appropriate. Problem is, there's alot that's NOT IN THE FM. Yet, this attitude still seems to be the main response from those capable of dev'ing / answering the questions for the rest of us, all too often. Even some of the senior folks, been around since FAR BEFORE ME, have threatened to leave as a result...
Here's my response: I AIN'T LEAVING. YOU'LL NOT DRIVE ME AWAY. I LOVE LINUXMCE, AND WHAT IT WILL DO FOR ME / MY FAMILY / MY CLIENTS. YOU'LL LEAVE BEFORE I DO, I ASSURE YOU, and it'll be your own negativity that makes it so... I just pray that I've learned enough to continue this project's improvement, when that happens...
Now, if I may offer a constructive idea, for cooperation with another project, that likely can use LMCE as much as LMCE can use them:
I've recently discovered eBox (
http://www.ebox-platform.com), and believe that it might just be the answer to much of the lack in the LinuxMCE feature-set, as a home-server. eBox provides WORKING Print-, OpenLDAP-, OpenVPN-, and other such services, AND will replace the Multi-WAN, OpenVPN, etc. for which I've previously employed other, more flawed and limited solutions.
A cooperative such as this could also offer their project features that have been requested by some of their users, and all the other things we, as LMCE-Geeks have grown to love...
Any chance of a cooperative development tag-team?
