Varnish project status

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

Now that summer winds down, it is time for me to give you a status
update from the Varnish Project:

0. Our new documentation
------------------------

Since the last report to varnish-announce, Per Buer has been very
active converting and writing documentation for our new "Sphinx"
powered tree, take a look:

	http://varnish-cache.org/docs/

As always, were are more than happy to receive contributions.

If you spot a mistake, thinks something could be explained better
or have a great example to contribute:  Drop Per an email, he is
our "doc-stuckee" for now.

My own random outbursts from the machine room also end up in the
sphinx three, and when I get stuck on a remote island I will find
the old ones and convert as well:

	http://varnish-cache.org/docs/trunk/phk/index.html


1. Varnish 2.1.4
----------------

Tollef is gearing up towards a 2.1.4 minor release with the recent
bugfixes, probably late september or so.  Nothing earth-shattering,
just making sure we have the best release out there we can.


2. Varnish 3.0
--------------

This is what I am working on mostly.  The lastest addition is VCL
expressions and modules, which makes VCL able to express things we
could not before, allows C language extensions to be encapsulated
sensibly:

	import std

	sub vcl_recv {
		if (req.grace > 25 m * 1.25) {
			set req.http.host = std.tolower(req.http.host);
		}
	}

There are many i's to dot and t's to cross in this code as it
effectively opens up an entirely new API to Varnish and it is
obviously not finished yet, but anybody contemplating writing modules
are encouraged to check out the work in progress in -trunk
(lib/libvmod_std) and get in touch with me, as I would love to have
a couple of useful standard modules shipping with 3.0 (GeoIP anyone ?)

Varnish 3.0 will change a lot of stuff, and will suffer a number
of major renamings, to get terminology aligned with reality.  The
"purges" we know today will become "bans", and the experimental
"nuke" will become "purge" and so on.  I still don't have a complete
list, but I'm taking the chance to get a lot of things that we got
"almost right" in v1 and v2 set firmly right in v3.

A realistisc release date is somewhere this winter, probably early in
2011, as my autumn calendar is pretty messed up already.


3. Varnish User Group Meeting 3
-------------------------------

We should start thinking about this one.  Realistically we are
probably talking january/february 2011, which just might coincide
with the 3.0 release, who knows ?

As always we prefer somewhere near a well connected airport, not
too far away from everybody.  (Yes, I know Wellington is nice in
January, and I'd really love to see New Zealand but...)

We probably need to start looking for larger venues than "some
random meeting-room" as we will probably soon see 40-50 people at
these events soon.

I would really like to avoid the "full-scale hosted-event at some
hotel" if we can, they are horribly expensive and seldom brings any
advantages for the money.

A small auditorium or a large classroom at some educational institution,
a bunch of pizzas and soft drinks for lunch is much more my style
and price range.

But as always, the person doing the job gets to call the shots, and
we still don't know who that person is:

	Volunteer VUG3 arranger sought, apply by email.


4. New developers
-----------------

Varnish Software have hired two new developers, Martin & Yves who
will gradually start to get involved.  I belive that Yves is mostly
going to work on the Varnish Software's additional products,
(management console etc) whereas Martin will be working more on
core code stuff.  He is already starting to pick up some of the bug
reports during our monday afternoon "bug-wash".


5. Other Events
---------------

I just debuted a new Varnish presentation at DrupalCon2010CPH this
past week, and it got a nice and/or polite reception there, I will
be polishing it a bit and next outing will be:

	T3CON10 at Frankfurt Oct 1-2.

I will also be with my old crew at EuroBSDcon in Karlsruhe Oct 8-10.


6. Varnish Moral License
------------------------

I got a little ahead of the license payments in spring, and I took
some time of in July to get back on track, but so far this is working
out great and paying for a lot of bugfixing and development.

There is room for up to about EUR2000/month more work, if somebody
wants to buy a VML for it:  http://phk.freebsd.dk/VML/

And of course my Amazon wish-list is also a good way to show
appreciation: http://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/1XSZNDWXKIAS0


7. Some Thanks are in order
---------------------------

One of the things that in my mind characterizes a sound and thriving
open source project is the participation.

We see more and more good bugreports and the usual gang in our IRC
channel and om varnish-misc is doing a great job of helping new
users with their questions.

Therefore a big THANKYOU from here to all who lend Varnish a hand,
it is much appreciated.

'till next time,

Poul-Henning

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.