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

Thu Dec 31 03:44:14 UTC 2020

politics politics politics

why can't we all be friends and work together?

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 6:52 PM Steve Zingman <szingman at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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> 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
>> > 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 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. 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 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
>> >
>> > PTTLink Node List Server - nodes(x).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 before the ASL Board forked the
>> network):
>> >
>> > IP Address of registered node: dig <node#>.nodes.pttlink.org
>> >
>> > TXT record showing DNS registration info: dig TXT <node#>.
>> 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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