Talk about SyMenu or post suggestions, requests, or how-to questions
Who (the hell) are the SyMenu users?
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Gianluca Administrator Posts: 1313
06/02/2024
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We have a problem, a big one.
When SyMenu was only a simple stand alone program, knowing its users was not an important thing. Today, thanks to the SPS technology, SyMenu has become a hub for portable programs. And the conditions have changed, a lot.
Every single day there is a relevant pressure to this web site because thousands of SyMenu call home to know if a new program definition is available and eventually (almost every day) to download it.
There are also minor APIs related to the SyMenu version checking, updating and other actions.
The problem here is that every web site has limits on its resources like bandwidth, number of visits, server RAM...
The second problem is the burden to maintain the SyMenu suite is increasing week by week.
One year ago I decided not to increase my already large collection of SPS. Despite this decision, today I am at 700, and there are editors with more than 100 that means they are full too.
It's a big problem because SPS is a fantastic technology and theoretically allows me and the others volunteers to index not hundreds but thousands of programs, but, again, it's a resource problem: my time, the editors' time.
The last problem is that I have no idea who is benefiting this fantastic system and, above all, how many SyMenu users really are.
Since every SyMenu installation should be identified by a unique and anonymous GUID (see SyMenuConfig.xml, identity node) I carried out some investigations to infer the numbers and I discovered that, supposedly, more than 3.000 users (!!!) are hiding behind three or four GUID. It's a conservative estimate based on the different geographical area from where the calls with those particular GUID arrive... so at least 3.000 users or four ubiquitous persons.
This situation it's probably caused by some third party editors that distribute SyMenu and create a configuration with the same GUID for all their users. The SyMenu customization is allowed but I always explain that the configuration node identity needs to be left blank.
These are the problems.
Now let's go with the solutions.
The only way I have to count the users is preventing everyone from downloading the definitions without a login. If you already have a user register on the forum you can use that one, otherwise create a new user and wait because the next SyMenu version will force everyone to be recognizable.
And this is for the fantastic four: don't even think of creating a user linked to dozens of SyMenu because these kind of users will be automatically banned.
Naturally to download the definitions you need to use the last SyMenu version because I'll lock every direct download (yes I have this one too.......) or download with old SyMenu versions.
Sorry guys, but this situation is negatively impacting the entire project.
Naturally if you have something to say, this is the right place.
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Gianluca Administrator Posts: 1313
07/02/2024
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scentse wrote:
I imagine work on this project began long before I discovered it.
2002!
scentse wrote:
Giver the time/effort poured into developing SPS & SyMenu, there clearly exists a strong sense of ownership protection surrounding it.
Once a user call me the "benevolent dictator"... well there's only one person in this world that deserves this title and it's not me, but the sense of protection you mention it's clearly what drives my actions and decisions.
scentse wrote:
Sometime back, I asked about open-sourcing the project, but it was shot down.
SyMenu code is already on GitHub in a private repository. In the past three people asked to collaborate, but after I opened the repository they disappeared. So the code is closed because nobody expressed a real interest in it.
SPS instead is an open format. I shared the schema with whoever wants and asked for help from whoever wants to add new SPS. Today there are a dozen SPS editors active in the project but people go and rarely come.
What I think is the problem is not my approach to openness, it's about the requirements I ask to the collaborators that are probably too pretentious.
Regarding the SPS editors I ask for their time (a lot), expertise, reliability, trust, and long time commitment.
Regarding the code dev I ask them to be top programmers, seriously dedicated to the project.
And I ask all of this for free, because the project is entirely freeware. And probably this is its worst weakness or, at least, the real reason I can't expand it as I would because of the lack of resources.
scentse wrote:
For instance, could the definition list database be decoupled, compiled, & stored on Github?
The definition list DB is a simple collection of xml files. Text files.
They are already shared with the world because if you open your [SyMenu]\ProgramFiles\SPSSuite\SyMenuSuite\_Cache folder you'll find a zipped file with the entire list of the SPS inside. There's even a button in SyMenu to open the SPS for every program included in the definitions.
The problem on the editing side it's not about the place where the SPS are published but the persons that collaborate to publish them.
The editors are strongly committed, really expert on it, but very few. And GitHub is not a collaborators multiplicator.
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