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

Thu Dec 31 05:58:15 UTC 2020

FYI

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 6:08 PM Stacy <kg7qin at arrl.net> 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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-- 
73 and aloha

Dave - AH6OD
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