[Netalyzr] hello, two things please

Christian Kreibich christian at icir.org
Wed Jan 3 10:01:43 PST 2018


On 01/03/2018 04:07 AM, Brian J. Murrell wrote:
> Is it open source?  That could go a long way to making an otherwise
> doomed project self-sustaining.

I hear you Brian, but unfortunately that view is simplistic. Running an 
open-source project well takes significant cycles to sustain 
communication, documentation, support, etc. Also, sourcing/managing 
high-quality contributions can be a real challenge. We know this very 
well, since we're already running large open-source projects, such as 
the Bro network monitor.

> If it's not open source, why isn't it, 

It's not currently open source, but we have repeatedly handed out code 
and data to interested collaborators at our discretion. We didn't 
open-source our code for several reasons, including the additional 
resource drain it would entail, and the fact that we did not want to be 
in the API maintenance business to allow other parties to build tests 
against our back-ends.

In retrospect, I agree that perhaps we should have, but that's easy to 
say once a project is successful. You'll be happy to hear that once we 
complete the JavaScript-driven version, we will be open-sourcing both 
intentionally and as a side-effect of using that language.

> particularly when it's being
> developed at a non-profit center for research in computer science at an
> .edu?

Indeed, our mission is fundamental research, so please judge us by the 
success of our papers, not the availability of our code. Our projects 
have anywhere from zero to complete compatibility with open-source 
development, and we structure them accordingly. We are actually one of 
the most open-source-supportive research groups I can think of.

> Not to mention it's at least partial government (IOW, taxpayer)
> funded (NSF as one).

Netalyzr is currently not NSF-funded at all. Even if it were, such 
funding doesn't imply open-sourcing of code in any way.

Best,
-C.


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