Hi Rainer, Here are my 2 cents. Not a definitive opinion, I'm not getting upset if we'll go in the opposite direction :) Still, here they go:
I think that there are some realities that we need to face: - syslog is a fuzzy term. People tend to mesh the message format(s) with daemon(s) and protocol(s). There's lots of confusion and understandably so - lots of people think of syslog in general as sucky or dead or legacy, or... As you also noted - again, as you noted, rsyslog tends to fall into the same bucket. I've seen people complain about it in various ways. Usually two things: 1) documentation, and also about the rsyslog.com site itself (where they look for docs) which has lots of commercials and "hints" to professional services. Many connect the two saying docs are intentionally sucky to get you to pay 2) somehow related to the above, people seem to treat rsyslog like some very limited and very dead project. For example, if some default setting doesn't fit their use-case they tend to complain rather than search for an obvious solution on Google. And few people are aware that the version they're using is 10 years old or so (or are aware of any of the changes rsyslog has gone through since). By contrast, if someone has trouble with Logstash, one instantly looks at the [nice] docs on how to fix things in their config, and if you use a version from one year ago, everyone can tell you that it's ancient and you should move on. This is how things should be for rsyslog, too, IMO. Changing the name (and the logo) is, in my mind, a way to try and "reset" people's minds about what rsyslog is. To me, that's a workaround that doesn't fix the core of the problem, which is that the syslog ecosystem (daemons, message formats, protocols) is misunderstood. Sure, syslog isn't the solution for everything, but I think a lot of people will be fine with it if they knew what the options really are. To make this work, I see two action items: - write better docs, whatever that means - push them, so people use them more, become happy with rsyslog and spread the love As you can see, changing the name would be much easier than making good docs and spreading them around. So it might actually work. But I wouldn't do it, because I don't think it's the "right" solution. The only valid argument I see for renaming is that rsyslog is not *only* about syslog. But most of its features are syslog-related, so the name isn't misleading. Logstash isn't only about logs since some time now, and it doesn't seem to have a problem with that. Best regards, Radu 2014-01-30 Rainer Gerhards <[email protected]>: > Hi folks, > > let me ask a crazy question: would it make sense to *rename* the rsyslog > project (like into something like "logrocket";)) ? I know it's totally > crazy as it is well-known, but there is a lot of propaganda these days > against syslog in general and folks like to bash at rsyslog because it is > doing syslog. > > Not only have the systemd folks declared that there is end of line for > syslog, also the logstash community seems to aggressively market the fact > that "syslog is the old legacy that logstash replaces". Plus, there is a > lot of wrong information in all Wikipedias etc (and due to Wikipedia policy > I can't even update it, as I am a stakeholder -- they prefer folks without > knowledge of the field ;)). All around the Internet you find the smell of > syslog being old style dinosaur technology. > > In spite of this... may it actually be worth going through the pains of a > project name change? The alternative is to continue trying to convey that > rsyslog is not only syslog and that syslog in itself is far from being > dead... > > Feedback would be very welcome. Note that there is no immanent change, and > I am actually hesitant to do it, bit I would really like to hear about your > *feelings*. > > Thanks, > Rainer > _______________________________________________ > rsyslog mailing list > http://lists.adiscon.net/mailman/listinfo/rsyslog > http://www.rsyslog.com/professional-services/ > What's up with rsyslog? Follow https://twitter.com/rgerhards > NOTE WELL: This is a PUBLIC mailing list, posts are ARCHIVED by a myriad > of sites beyond our control. PLEASE UNSUBSCRIBE and DO NOT POST if you > DON'T LIKE THAT. > _______________________________________________ rsyslog mailing list http://lists.adiscon.net/mailman/listinfo/rsyslog http://www.rsyslog.com/professional-services/ What's up with rsyslog? Follow https://twitter.com/rgerhards NOTE WELL: This is a PUBLIC mailing list, posts are ARCHIVED by a myriad of sites beyond our control. PLEASE UNSUBSCRIBE and DO NOT POST if you DON'T LIKE THAT.
