[Nagiosplug-devel] submitting my plugin, check_sip

[Andreas Ericsson]

O'Shaughnessy Evans wrote:
> Hi, folks.  Some time back, I wrote a plugin to test SIP service (Jan
> 2005, if my RCS history is accuate).  I've been using it for some time
> and I figured it was about time that I offered it to the rest of the
> Nagios community.  I saw on voip-info.org that somebody else also has
> a check_sip plugin, but I didn't find it in the nagios-plugins tarball
> so I hope I'm not stepping on anybody's toes by offering my own for
> inclusion with the nagios-plugins distribution.
> 

Survival of the fittest dictates that competition breeds perfection. 
Until something is included in the official distribution, I'd say this 
is a free-fire zone and may the best code be used most. In any case, 
submitting the code is always to prefer over not doing so, as people can 
then choose for themselves which one to use.

> Before I post it to the list, I'd like to know the preferred method of
> doing so.  Should I include a README file with it and put them both in
> a .tar.gz, then MIME-attach it?  Simply attach the script and any other
> docs as their own attachments?  Post a URL for download and peer review?
> How would you prefer to see the code?
> 

Either way works, although Ton Voon, who manages the nagios-plugins, 
prefers to see contributions in the sourceforge tracker thingie. I 
personally never use it (no, not ever), so if you want your code to 
reach the maximum amount of users you should both post it to the tracker 
and stick it to an email as a plain-text attachment and send it.

Making a tar-ball out of it doesn't provide much benefit unless the 
script and it's docs are big (~20KiB or some such). I personally prefer 
having two attachments, with the readme as a separate one or included at 
the top of the plugin as a big block-comment, like most plugins are 
documented.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson at op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231