AllStarLink

HamWars: Allstarlink vs PTTLink

If one were to take the story at face value, over the new year holiday, the Board of Directors of AllStarLink sabotaged their own network by instituting a new server infrastructure to replace one that had existed for some time.

According to a statement issued today by Stacy (KG7QIN), “The groundwork was laid for what was to become PTTLink on 29 December 2020 after the unannounced and uncoordinated actions taken by the AllStarLink Board of Directors. At approximately 5:00 pm Pacific (0100 UTC, 30 December), the admin committee became aware of multiple catastrophic system outages. Attempts to login to systems to remediate were presented with new IP addresses and messages that the host keys were unknown. Further investigation revealed that the DNS zone record was updated at the registrar for allstarlink.org moving it from the long time home of caustic-sea.allstarlink.org to Cloudflare. In addition, an investigation into the IP addresses being presented revealed that they belonged to Google. (For more information on the AllStarLink admin committee visit: https://wiki.allstarlink.org/wiki/Admin_Committee). Since the admin team was not previously granted access to the DNS control panel, it was unknown at this time if this was the board, or a bad actor.”

The histrionics have been going on back and forth on the app_rpt mailing list for a few days, but this much is clear. There are now two app_rpt based networks to choose from, AllStarLink and PTTLink.

Who is right, who is wrong? From my read, the Board of Directors wanted to regain control over what they viewed as their network. Seems reasonable. From my read, they also acted in typical corporate fashion to quash any kind of dissent over their actions. In other words, not so reasonable.

But what do I know? Just like the Brandmeister vs. TGIF wars that have since calmed down, here’s hoping that these two networks will one day smoke the peace pipe, learn to get along, and interconnect. In the meantime, you can following the bouncing ball as each side lobs it at the other.

Building ASL on Debian Buster

Some AllStarLink sysops have expressed the desire to build an AllStarLink system on a modern Debian operating system. I took the time to document a working build process for the 020 Digital Multiprotocol Network and then Scott <KB2EAR> volunteered to create a shell script to automate the process. We are happy to share our work with the amateur radio community.

Please note that this process currently works only on the x86 architecture. It fails on a Raspberry Pi OS Buster system.

Hopefully this effort will fulfill a need for others in the AllStarLink community.

73 de K2IE

AllStarLink, Inc. Obtains Copyright

There are a couple of warring camps in the Allstar (app_rpt) development world. One group, AllStarLink, Inc., has claimed to represent the vision and interests of Jim Dixon <WB6NIL>, the original developer of app_rpt. Another group, HamVoip, has made some significant changes in that code in an effort to improve it.

So why can’t we all get along?

Jim Dixon released his code under the terms of the Gnu Public License. The short explanation of GPL is that anyone is free to use the code but any enhancements must be shared back with the community. AllStarLink, Inc. has insisted that HamVoip share the source code to its enhancements. HamVoip has declined.

The acrimony in some online forums has been thick enough to cut with a knife. Some have branded HamVoip as pirates and some have said that AllStarLink ought to get over itself and has no authority to enforce anything.

The scale has shifted in favor of the AllStarLink, Inc. defense of “open source”. In a recent announcement, the Board of Directors reports that:

AllStarLink, Inc., the extension of Jim Dixon’s vision for AllStar, has obtained all rights including Copyright to app_rpt and associated material. In the spirit of Open Source, we encourage code contributions to the project. Thank you for your continued support in keeping the AllStar vision alive.

Hopefully this settles matters once and for all. May Jim Dixon’s vision of an open, community based solution for analog repeater linking live long and prosper.