[App_rpt-users] Response to the AllStarLink Board of Directors message from 29 December 2020

Steve Zingman szingman at gmail.com
Thu Dec 31 01:51:32 UTC 2020


I understand that, my question is why was it "moved" and not forked. I 
setup the AllStarLink github account as part of AllStarLink. No matter 
what pttlink does the resource is AllStarLink.

Steve N4IRS

On 12/30/20 8:46 PM, Andrew Sylthe wrote:
> Steve,
>
> It appears to have been moved to https://github.com/pttlink/Asterisk
>
> On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 7:43 PM Steve Zingman <szingman at gmail.com 
> <mailto:szingman at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Stacy,
>     Do you know why the AllStarLink <https://github.com/AllStarLink>
>     github
>     repositories are gone? Was this part of the actions of the board?
>
>     Steve N4IRS
>
>     On 12/30/20 8:06 PM, Stacy wrote:
>     > A bit on this change:
>     >
>     > Nobody on the admin side that runs what was the AllStarLink (ASL)
>     > infrastructure (now PTTLink) was ever informed this was going to
>     > happen.  Yesterday afternoon (12/29/20) at around 5:00 PM
>     (Pacific) our
>     > monitoring system started going crazy with alerts telling us systems
>     > were down.  Investigation showed that the SOA record for
>     allstarlink.org <http://allstarlink.org>
>     > was changed to what it is now (Cloudflare) and this broke numerous
>     > things.  Both the wording and timing of this announcement is
>     very much a
>     > jab (or middle finger) pointed directly at me since I'm the main
>     person
>     > who has been running things.  I am one who has ensured that the ASL
>     > Network (and associated infrastructure) remained operational and was
>     > able to handle the increasingly growing number of nodes (well over
>     > 5,100).  This was done solely through me investing both my own
>     time and
>     > money without the help or participation of the ASL Board.  In
>     addition
>     > to this "re-engineering" I have also had my account on the ASL Slack
>     > workspace suspended without notice and any and all admin access
>     to the
>     > ASL Web portal was removed too (among other things).
>     >
>     > For quite some time, well before Bryan Fields (W9CR) or Fred Moses
>     > (W8FSM) stopped their involvement in ASL directly, the
>     AllStarLink, Inc
>     > Board (ASL Board) has done its best to alienate, patronize,
>     ridicule,
>     > demean, and basically exclude the admin team from anything
>     substantial
>     > regarding the ASL infrastructure for which they had no
>     understanding of
>     > nor did they attempt to understand.   Numerous attempts were made by
>     > myself and others to try to fix the issues that were very
>     apparent, and
>     > yet they were met with disdain and ignored.  This included on
>     several
>     > occasions attempts at impassioned pleas by myself and others
>     directly to
>     > the ASL Board members regarding the issues that we saw and
>     asking for
>     > reparations to make things better.   Of which included being open
>     > regarding any decisions being made which directly affected the admin
>     > team.  Additionally, any and all attempts to ask what is
>     happening on/at
>     > the board level regarding ASL were ignored or told that it didn't
>     > involve or concern us.  Instead, they continued on the same
>     course of
>     > action that served to alienate more and more people from
>     participating
>     > in ASL on the admin side with the results of me being the sole admin
>     > person left.
>     >
>     > This "re-engineering" and the resulting chaos and outages are
>     serve as a
>     > testament to the ASL Board again attempting to change things without
>     > understanding the system itself and without telling anyone.
>     >
>     >> This is part of an ongoing two-year project to provide sufficient
>     > resources for projected node growth and additional stability. In
>     > addition, this will create a stable framework for new types of
>     clients
>     > to participate in the future.
>     >
>     > Again, nobody told me (or anyone else associated with the admin
>     team)
>     > about this "two year project".  Each and every time the ASL
>     Board has
>     > attempted a change (and broken something), the current node
>     registration
>     > system was brought up.  For example, the Round Robin DNS (RRDNS) has
>     > been a sticking point for a certain unnamed ASL Board member,
>     and during
>     > discussions this unnamed individual had the audacity to state that
>     > DSNMGR messages regarding changes to the IP address of the server at
>     > register.allstarlink.org <http://register.allstarlink.org> was
>     "trashing his node".   One of the long
>     > since alienated admin team members had to explain that you could
>     adjust
>     > logging in Asterisk through a config file.  This is one of many
>     examples
>     > that demonstrated the lack of knowledge of AllStarLink,
>     Asterisk, and
>     > app_rpt by a  member of the ASL Board.  Yet we are to believe that a
>     > "two year project" has been in the works by this same group that is
>     > supposed be  a "re-engineered" system to promote growth and
>     stability?
>     >
>     >> You should also be aware that some specific volunteers (past and
>     > current) have opposed this sort of design change and we suspect
>     that you
>     > may be reading negative comments from them on various platforms. The
>     > board’s staffing goals are to promote technical innovation from
>     as many
>     > hams as want to get involved and bring new features and clients
>     to Allstar.
>     >
>     > Don't be fooled by this attempt at taking the high ground.  The
>     > opposition they are implying results from attempts at changes
>     from the
>     > ASL Board without understanding the underlying technical issues
>     behind
>     > how/why things run and causing outages that they wouldn't (or
>     couldn't)
>     > fix.  Each and every time an ASL Board member brought up
>     > "re-engineering" the registration system, the reply that I
>     empathically
>     > gave was that yes, the system can be improved upon but there
>     needs to be
>     > a plan.  I personally have stated that I am open to improvements
>     to this
>     > system that were the result of planning, testing and made
>     sense.  The
>     > ASL Board thought that moving the system to AWS or Google would
>     "solve"
>     > everything yet when pressed for details on how this would be
>     done, we
>     > were met with crickets or arguments that it was just better and
>     that was
>     > that.  And when asked about a budget for such a move we were
>     again met
>     > with silence.  The "resistance" that is alluded to was with
>     regards to
>     > actually sitting down and creating a plan on how to move forward
>     with
>     > "re-engineering" this system, and not just what amounted to throwing
>     > scat at the wall and seeing what stuck (resulting in either
>     myself or
>     > others on the admin team having to figure out what broke and fix it,
>     > since most of these changes were done without telling us).  At
>     no point
>     > during the any of occasions in which I said this has any ASL Board
>     > member taken the initiative to actually have this discussion
>     with me (or
>     > anyone on the admin team) and come up with a viable plan to both
>     > "re-engineer" and do a proper cut over that isn't as disruptive
>     as the
>     > one we are experiencing now.
>     >
>     > There is a history of the ASL Board doing things that have broken
>     > registration and parts of the infrastructure in the past, and
>     this is no
>     > different.
>     >
>     > PTTLink was formed due to the ASL Board's actions which forked the
>     > AllStarLink network by changing the DNS records without prior
>     notice.
>     >
>     > The PTTLink Network can be thought of as an "overlay" to what
>     had been
>     > in operation as the AllStarLink Network. This change was done
>     simply by
>     > changing the domain name in use on the servers to pttlink.org
>     <http://pttlink.org>. Your
>     > existing credentials will continue to work unless you change them.
>     > However, PTTLink, as a result of the ASL Board's egregious and
>     careless
>     > action, is now a separate entity from the AllStarLink Network. I
>     call
>     > upon the ASL Board to restore DNS back to the way it was before they
>     > forked it, moving everything back to the perfectly working
>     > infrastructure that uses what are now the pttlink.org
>     <http://pttlink.org> servers.
>     > Additionally, I call upon them to restore all access that was
>     revoked
>     > from me (both recently, and that which was revoked before
>     without notice).
>     >
>     > I am very disappointed in the egregious actions that the ASL
>     Board has
>     > taken (or more importantly have directed others to take) with
>     regards to
>     > the AllStarLink infrastructure and their statement.  Such
>     actions are
>     > clearly indicative of a group that is unfit to be the stewards
>     to the
>     > legacy of the late Jim Dixon or properly be of service to the
>     community
>     > without trying to benefit from it.  Additionally, I feel that these
>     > actions, as made clear in their statement, were directed at me in an
>     > attempt to "punish" me for my insistence and diligence at
>     keeping the
>     > ASL (now PTTLInk) infrastructure running when others made disruptive
>     > changes to it.  If so, then this is very troubling indeed.
>     >
>     > As I have very plainly stated before to the ASL Board members and
>     > others, as long as I have the resources to support ASL they will
>     remain
>     > available.  In that I will pledge to my fellow hams that PTTLink
>     will
>     > remain operational and available for use as long as I am able to
>     > continue to provide the time and other resources to keeping it
>     > operational.  Fortunately, I am no longer alone in this endeavor and
>     > others have volunteered to help.
>     >
>     > The new links for PTTLInk sites are as follows:
>     >
>     > PTTLink Portal - https://www.pttlink.org
>     >
>     > PTTLink Stats Server - http://stats.pttlink.org
>     >
>     > PTTLink Registration Server - register.pttlink.org
>     <http://register.pttlink.org>
>     >
>     > PTTLink Node List Server - nodes(x).pttlink.org <http://pttlink.org>
>     >
>     > PTTLInk is on Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/pttlink
>     >
>     >
>     > Additionally, you can use the DNS node lookup developed by W9CR
>     (which
>     > was working with allstarlink.org <http://allstarlink.org> before
>     the ASL Board forked the network):
>     >
>     > IP Address of registered node: dig <node#>.nodes.pttlink.org
>     <http://nodes.pttlink.org>
>     >
>     > TXT record showing DNS registration info: dig TXT
>     <node#>.nodes.pttlink.org <http://nodes.pttlink.org>
>     >
>     > Additionally, you can utilize the app_rpt-users mailing list for
>     support
>     > by subscribing at
>     >
>     >
>     > 73,
>     > Stacy
>     > KG7QIN
>     >
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>
> -- 
> Andrew Sylthe
> KC9ONA
>
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