Re: What is this? It doesn't work...

[Michael Ströder <michael@stroeder.com>]

@OpenLDAP developers:
I'm feeling friendly today so I'll take this one... ;-)

Hex Star wrote:
> I don't understand how complicated software like this gets widely
> deployed and accepted when documentation on it is so limited and
> unclear... It is quite difficult to get ldap to function properly and am
> left with the question of how the hell anyone can figure out how to get
> this piece of software to do anything! If there was some form of
> acceptable documentation....

Actually there is documentation available today.

Additionally a personal historical note for clarifying how open source
projects and their mailing lists work:

I started using Umich LDAP (predecessor of OpenLDAP) back in 1998.
If I remember correctly I managed to get it working by trying to
understand the basic concepts of LDAP, applying my (limited) knowledge
about networked server software I had back then and sometimes asking
questions on mailing list. Especially for the latter it was quite
important for the success to provide information about what I had done
so far by sending relevant excerpts from configuration files, error
messages shown on console etc.
I was quite surprised to find out how many helpful people are out there.
I'm still thankful that developers, experienced admins etc. shared their
in-depth knowledge with me. The rerequisite is off course that you
yourself are friendly, you don't simply blame others for not providing
enough docs and take the advice of experienced users.

Have a nice day. :-)

Ciao, Michael.