Ping/Traceroute analyser

[sn00p]

Hi,

I'm currently working on a ping/traceroute analyser, I started the project about 9 months ago when lockdown started and my internet connection started going wonky with everybody working from home. I had to stop work on it for a while when my father passed away, but over the past couple of months I've got back to it.



The project keeps me occupied at night, I have some health issues and suffer with pain and insomnia, so having something to focus on helps me until I'm ready to sleep. Along the way I've created various other libraries and software which I eventually spun off into separate projects, everything is available under the GPL from my GitHub account.

I'm currently tidying up a few bits and pieces and am currently in the process of producing some documentation, but the actual software is very easy to use.

https://github.com/fizzyade/pingnoo

as I mentioned, I moved quite a few bits out of the project and into their own modules, a few of these:

Ribbon(like) Bar. https://github.com/fizzyade/qt-ribbon

A simple ribbon bar which also includes a designer plugin to make it easy to use, runs under macOS, Windows & Linux and supports Dark and Light mode under macOS. Provides themed widgets which match the style

Component System. https://github.com/fizzyade/componentsystem

A higher level system for handling plugins, allows dependencies which are resolved at load time and a system for registering objects so that other components can find and extend the software.

Settings Dialog. https://github.com/fizzyade/SettingsDialog

A small library for creating application settings, under macOS it provides a Mac style settings window with animated transitions and on windows and linux it provides a more traditional settings style.

Font Awesome helper library. https://github.com/fizzyade/FontAwesomeForQt

Another small library that uses a tags to allow font awesome glyphs to be used inline in text

dmgee, a DMG designer/creator. https://github.com/fizzyade/dmgee

Tool for designing DMG files for software distribution.

additionally, here's a link to the docking windows library that I open-sourced from my company.

Visual studio style docking windows. https://github.com/KestrelRadarSensors/dockingpanes

Provides an implementation of docking windows (supports docking, floating, tabbed, pinned etc) that works on windows, linux and macOS.

Maybe some of this might be useful for other people.

[d_stranz]

Awesome! It has been a terrible year, but it is very heartening to hear your story and how you are moving through these hard times. Keep up the great work!

Edit: Any possibility of releasing this with LGPL licensing so it could be more widely used, like Qt itself?

[sn00p]

Thanks for you kind words.

Specifically what do you need under LGPL? I may be receptive to adding LGPL as an option on some stuff, although not the main application itself. I’m trying (hoping) to get people to contribute to stuff which is the main reason of choosing GPL, I know with LGPL they are supposed to provide any changes, but when it’s LGPL I feel like they’re more likely to just use it as is and not contribute anything back, the GPL license was chosen for this good faith.

Yeah, 2020 was awful for me personally, I am on the clinically extremely vulnerable list here in the UK, I haven’t left the house since March last year apart from hospital visits and some personal matters. In august my father passed away, in October I ended up getting covid which came into our house via our daughter at school (she is also on the CEV list), then I found out i had developed antibodies to a drug I have to inject, so was taken off that and 2 weeks ago I got a gallstone stuck which resulted in me being admitted into hospital for 4 days. My sister in law also passed away shortly after my dad, and then my aunt a few weeks later.

this project has been a huge help in keeping me occupied and I feel like I’m finally getting to a point where the base is complete and I can start working on more interesting functionality.

[d_stranz]

Specifically what do you need under LGPL?

Neither GPL or LGPL requires anyone to contribute anything back if they use it as-is. Keeping your main app as GPL is perfectly appropriate, it is labeling the other 5 or 6 libraries as GPL that prevents them from being used in anything except a GPL project.

Take Qt for example - all of it is released as LGPL, which means it can be used in both open-source and closed-source projects, so long as the closed-source projects make the code available along with any changes they make to it. I have a commercial subscription to Qt to help support the product, but I use Qt as-is without ever considering making changes to Qt itself so in principle I could use it under LGPL terms.

But if Qt had been released under GPL terms, I wouldn't even be here because I couldn't use it. Likewise your libraries - I'd like to see what they're about, but I went to github, read the license file, and said, nope, can't use it no matter how good it is. And from the screenshot of your app, it looks pretty good.

So to me, the question of GPL vs. LGPL boils down to, "How big an audience do you want to reach with your libraries?" With GPL it is the GPL community, with LGPL it is everyone, with the benefit that if more eyes are on the code, the more likely it is you'll receive bug fixes and improvements. Either way you release it, your goal is obviously not to make money but to provide something of use.

It sounds like you have had a much worse year than most, and I am sorry for you and all of your losses. I have been fortunate with a job I can work from home, no kids, and no need to go out except for the once every two week grocery shopping trip. I have a heart condition that could place me at higher risk should I acquire COVID, so I too have had no contact with anyone except my partner since March. Here in California the vaccine is slowly rolling out and I am on the list for the end of March so with luck and precautions I can hold out until then. Luck, mostly, I think. The virus is insidious.

[sn00p]

Neither GPL or LGPL requires anyone to contribute anything back if they use it as-is. Keeping your main app as GPL is perfectly appropriate, it is labeling the other 5 or 6 libraries as GPL that prevents them from being used in anything except a GPL project.

Take Qt for example - all of it is released as LGPL, which means it can be used in both open-source and closed-source projects, so long as the closed-source projects make the code available along with any changes they make to it. I have a commercial subscription to Qt to help support the product, but I use Qt as-is without ever considering making changes to Qt itself so in principle I could use it under LGPL terms.

But if Qt had been released under GPL terms, I wouldn't even be here because I couldn't use it. Likewise your libraries - I'd like to see what they're about, but I went to github, read the license file, and said, nope, can't use it no matter how good it is. And from the screenshot of your app, it looks pretty good.

So to me, the question of GPL vs. LGPL boils down to, "How big an audience do you want to reach with your libraries?" With GPL it is the GPL community, with LGPL it is everyone, with the benefit that if more eyes are on the code, the more likely it is you'll receive bug fixes and improvements. Either way you release it, your goal is obviously not to make money but to provide something of use.

It sounds like you have had a much worse year than most, and I am sorry for you and all of your losses. I have been fortunate with a job I can work from home, no kids, and no need to go out except for the once every two week grocery shopping trip. I have a heart condition that could place me at higher risk should I acquire COVID, so I too have had no contact with anyone except my partner since March. Here in California the vaccine is slowly rolling out and I am on the list for the end of March so with luck and precautions I can hold out until then. Luck, mostly, I think. The virus is insidious.

I don't think I got across what I was trying to say, yes people have no obligation to contribute back, but by providing them as GPL only my reasoning was that it may help promote or convince people to produce projects under the GPL. I know this is going to be (like you said) a deal-breaker for many, I hope you can understand why I have initially released these under the GPL license.

I'm not against releasing the libraries under the LGPL, heck, I use Qt under the LGPL so it would be hypocritical of myself to say "nope", it's something I need to consider though.

Also, remember that Qt was at one point only available under the GPL or a commercial license, Nokia were responsible for making it available under the LGPL, so it does have a lot of history with the GPL.

Providing everything under the GPL was honestly done in good faith, as a give back to the open-source community and as you point out, my intention is/was not to monetize any of this (not that I could anyway as for personal use, I'm priced out of Qt), I simply wrote a tool for myself, during the development of it I wrote a load of other "parts" which I spun off into separate projects in their own right.

I really appreciate your post and your thoughts on it. I will honestly have a long think about this and maybe re-license a few bits and pieces for starters and see how we go from there.

Is there anything in particular that you'd be specifically interested in?


I assume it's a bit warmer in California than it is here in London (UK) at the moment. I had my first vaccination jab on Sunday, here in the UK they are prioritising older people and those with underlying medical conditions, so I have had my jab quite early on.

[d_stranz]

by providing them as GPL only my reasoning was that it may help promote or convince people to produce projects under the GPL.

Right, so it comes down to a choice between encouraging open-source projects (under GPL) vs. releasing something under LGPL to encourage as widespread use as possible. Both are fine goals. I think that the reality is that far more people work under circumstances that prevent them from using anything other than LGPL or commercial libraries.

I was happy when Nokia opened up Qt to LGPL, but I still pay for the commercial license just to avoid having to figure out how to build all of Qt in the absence (at least as far as I have been able to ascertain) of any scripts published by Qt to build it. Perhaps this will come with the switch to CMake for 6.0.

Is there anything in particular that you'd be specifically interested in?

Probably the component system, dock windows, and ribbon in that order.

[sn00p]

Right, so it comes down to a choice between encouraging open-source projects (under GPL) vs. releasing something under LGPL to encourage as widespread use as possible. Both are fine goals. I think that the reality is that far more people work under circumstances that prevent them from using anything other than LGPL or commercial libraries.

I was happy when Nokia opened up Qt to LGPL, but I still pay for the commercial license just to avoid having to figure out how to build all of Qt in the absence (at least as far as I have been able to ascertain) of any scripts published by Qt to build it. Perhaps this will come with the switch to CMake for 6.0.

Probably the component system, dock windows, and ribbon in that order.

It's all food for thought, I appreciate your thoughts/musing/suggestions on all of this.

The component system and the ribbon bar are things I certainly can release under the LGPL, the docking windows is more complex because it's something I wrote many years ago for my company and it was our first foray into releasing some stuff as open-source, I'd have to talk with my business partners about this, but it's also the project that has had third parties commit code to, so being GPL hasn't hurt it.

I guess the only way to know whether it encourages others to work on it or whether they will simply consume it under the LGPL, is to try it, obviously, there's no going back once I do this.

[d_stranz]

Obviously, and ultimately, it is up to you.

Don't know if you've seen the "Qt Advanced Docking System". Check out the video.

[sn00p]

Yeah, I've seen that. It's (from memory) a little, umm, ugly. I also seem to remember it crashing wi I seem to remember that it doesn't support pinned collapsed windows either.

The docking window library I wrote is around 10 or so years old now, it pre-dates most of the other docking libraries I've found for Qt and I think some of them have only just supported the pinning behaviour, my implementation supported it from day 1!