[Fedora-suds-list] Is suds still maintained?

[Joshua J. Kugler]

On Friday, August 12, 2011, Veres-Szentkiralyi Andras elucidated thus:
> 2011. augusztus 12. péntek 01:24:13 dátummal Dave Rawks ezt írta:
> > I just hit a bug today while writing some threaded code that uses
> > suds and I see that a bug report was already filed
> > (https://fedorahosted.org/suds/ticket/331) over a year ago. The .41
> > release looks to be about 8 months over due; is it time to migrate
> > my project to something else?
> 
> I also submitted an enhancement patch in May to this list, and got no
> answer. On 22nd July, in a thread about reusing cached WSDLs and
> XSDs, Michael Sommerville wrote "I'm not sure what is going to
> happen to suds in the longer term. Perhaps it is time to create a
> public fork?" and I tend to agree with him.

I'm not sure there is a need for a fork, if Jeff Ortel (the current 
maintainer) would be willing to pass off maintainter-ship.  He has 
interest in Suds, and can often be hit up for help on #suds, but his 
projects have taken him elsewhere these days.

A "problem" with a project such as this is that SOAP is such an arcane 
and complex standard (with many incompatible implementations) that 
effectively steering a project such as this can be maddening.  If we do 
move maintainership "off of" Jeff, I would suggest two things:

1) The new project lead(s) is/are near-experts (the nearer the better) 
in SOAP, and very strong Python chops would be needed as well, as it's a 
big, complex project.  Knowledge of XML standards would be needed too.

2) One of the first priorities would be to write a comprehensive test 
suite: not only with good code coverage, but with good standard coverage 
as well, as well as the incompatible corner cases of various 
implementaitons (that are known).  This is because fixing a corner case, 
if not done properly, can break other things.  I seem to remember at 
least one instance where Jeff rejected a patch because it broke 
something else in Suds, or shifted out of compliance, etc.

I know two things: 1) I would LOVE to see Suds get some attention, and 
2) I am not the person to do that as I know just enough SOAP/Suds/XML to 
consume my Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce services.  Actually, I 
don't even know enough to consume Salesforce servies, as I use Suds via 
the Saleforce Python Toolkit, which wraps Suds. :)

Jeff? Any comment on this.

j

-- 
Joshua Kugler
Part-Time System Admin/Programmer
http://www.eeinternet.com - Fairbanks, AK
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