[Xitami] xitami ftp server problem

[Paul Reid]

Alvaro - 

> As a customer I think you would appreciate hearing ....

I'm an unpaying user, not The Company, but I'll jump in and say things
Ewen may not want to say.

[I see Brad got in first with comments similar to mine, but maybe I have
something to add.]

First, it is clear that development of Xitami is stalled. Imatix
primarily does custom software. Xitami grew out of an early project, and
was released to promote Imatix's ability. Since then, Imatix apparently
has got so much good paying custom work that Ewen is chained to his desk
for days at a time, too busy to even peek at this mail-list or take time
to release Xitami updates (or even get all their websites to point to
the latest releases). I gather that they also moved or renovated their
headquarters, another sign that the custom software business is being
very good to Imatix. I'm happy for them; but that means Xitami is what
it is and won't get much attention. 

I believe that Xitami was released with the hopes that a strong user
community would develop improvements. Such has been the case with Apache
and Linux; but not with Xitami. It seems to draw simpletons like me: I
can write 3-line BASIC programs, and I have changed a string in the
Xitami code and got it to compile, but when I try to change how it works
the compiler laughs at me. There are some far better programmers using
Xitami, and some improvements come from them, but most of them are busy
on their own projects. 

>  I would guess that the majority of people who want your server, dont
necessarily want it just because it is free.  

I disagree. I think most Xitami users like "free". Even at that bargain
price there is strong competition from free Apache. 

> want the easy to use Web Admin screens, and not the config files for configuration.

That, for me, was the key distinction between Xitami and Apache.
Apache's config files are huge, full of things that I don't understand,
and the key items are not grouped together. However, considering the
versatile and advanced state of Apache over Xitami, it would make more
sense for someone to sit down and write a Web-GUI interface for Apache's
config files than to try to add all possible features into Xitami. 

> several thousand dollars of IIS and other servers.

MS sent me IIS for free; I have no idea why. It also comes "free" with
the high price versions of NT. Or if you do not need something quite
that heavy, MS PWS (a cut-down IIS) has always been a free download and
works OK. But at -any- price, my opinion of PWS/IIS is that it was
written by children to $ell other software (Front Page, Access, Back
Office, etc etc). 3 years ago I suspected it was buggy hacker-bait, and
CodeRed shows my suspicions were right. It also locks you into MS O/Ses
and backend applications and Intel-ish hardware, whereas many other
servers are multi-platform. At any price, IIS is too expensive. 

> A better FTP is definetly one of them, as opposed to SSL capabilities.

I find the FTP to be quite adequate. Not 100%: it sometimes chokes on
large/many files, someone here says it lacks wildcard directory listing,
and its portbase is locked to the HTTP portbase. Still, except for
weekend crashes when one of my associates tries to upload a month's
worth of vacation pictures in one sitting, I'm happy with it. 

Note that the world is FULL of FTP servers, many of them very
feature-rich, many free. It is no problem to disable Xitami's FTP,
install another FTP service, and point it to the same folder as your
webpages. 

Since the world offers many good free and inexpensive FTP servers, and
many of us make zero income from our servers, charging for a spiffy FTP
feature in Xitami does not seem like a good business plan. However, a
need for SSL almost proves that you are making money with your web
server, so it is quite reasonable to charge for the SSL module. 

> features that allow me to use .... Microsoft Front Page, 

??? A colleague is learning FP, I told her to point to my Xitami server,
and -bam- her pages published. On Xitami, FP "Extensions" are not
supported, but these are buggy MS DLLs that I don't want laying around
in public. I admit I have not much explored what FP can do when dancing
with IIS..... it may do some fun stuff but I also smell hacker-doors. 

>  ASP and JSP servers are necessary.

MS's implementation of ASP is proprietary and was uncommon when Xitami
was developed. The same things can be done with SSI, PHP, and other
techniques that don't require you to sleep with Bill Gates. If you
already have MS ASP pages and "can't afford to change", then you have
already fallen into Bill Gates' trap. You Can Be Saved; but you have to
want to. A choice each of us must make alone. 

> offer a base package with incremental add-ons

Imatix seems to be a bunch of programmers, not order-clerks. Their core
business model is "We'll do this whole business system for $10,000". 3
months of programmer work, 3 hours to type a bill and deposit the check.
I don't think they want to handle a lot of small customers and spend
most of their time supporting dumb questions; that's not the best use of
good programmers like Imatix has. 

Also, even if you only buy 3 of 10 modules, those modules have to be
tested in all combinations so that no matter what collection you get,
they will work together. Testing many configurations adds costs. I think
"dinner with or without dessert" is a better menu than mix-and-match
ala-carte. Obviously this could go either way, but I don't think Imatix
wants to run a cafeteria. 

My 2 cents, and only my opinion.

 -PRR