
Show HN: Lavagna, an open-source issue/project management tool - syjer
http://lavagna.io/
======
BjoernKW
Contrary to most of the others on this thread I appreciate you're using Java
for this. Using Java means drawing upon a very robust foundation. This very
much looks like a tool for business rather than personal use.

I can't imagine why a company wouldn't get a proper yet slightly more
expensive server with an adequate amount of RAM instead of a vhost that only
allows to run PHP, especially as the software itself comes for free and most
companies such a tool would be useful for likely already have some sort of
dedicated server - either on-prem or hosted - anyway.

Besides, Java often is the only option for deploying tools in larger
companies.

I have one question, though: What's your business model with Lavagna? From
what I've seen at a cursory glimpse there doesn't seem to be dual-licensing or
anything similar (which on the other hand probably wouldn't make sense for a
project management tool anyway).

~~~
syjer
Thank you for understanding the choice of the language :).

In fact we (3 of us) are all working in a "big" enterprise settings so we
kinda know (and suffer sometimes) about the general constraints of deploying
external software (it's more probable that a java or dotNet app will be
accepted than something built with an exotic stack that require others
additional software that nobody is able to operate internally).

Anyway, for running lavagna you don't need a big server, I'm running it on a
small (free) 512mb of ram server from openshift _with_ a mysql instance in it!
This is a 5usd/month instance at digitalocean.

>What's your business model with Lavagna?

We are developing it in our spare time (I don't work full time so I can do
projects like that), so nothing concrete at the moment, we are open for any
opportunity.

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sigmaml
Can those who 'lost' the post at Java describe what makes it 'lose' them?
Curious.

Also, is the implication that the merit of the tool is decided based on your
personal liking/disliking for the language it is implemented in? That seems
childish! If you are responsible for any decent business, dangerous!

~~~
stephenr
Java applications from my experience are simply more hassle to deploy and
maintain on Linux servers.

~~~
syjer
That's why I packaged the application in two way:

\- a .war for deploying in a standard 3.0 servlet container

\- a self contained executable war that has a embedded jetty http server

For the self contained option, you only need a working java 7 runtime. I don't
think that I can do it simpler than that.

Additionally, if you prefer an even more automated way of updating the
software, the application is available on maven central, so you could (as we
are currently doing it in our openshift instance) use the maven jetty plugin
and select the depedency.

I can't really think of a simpler deploy system. (except statically linked
binary, obviously, but there you need to select the correct os :))

edit: we have a docker image for testing purpose too.

------
avitzurel
I have a few comments on this one

1\. It looks awesome in terms of UI 2\. The webpage looks great and explains
everything I wanted to know.

But when I looked at the source code and saw Java I was deeply disappointed.

I use Java a lot, MapReduce, Pig, Storm topologies, I love java but I would
never use it on a server.

With every open source project adoption is super important, having Java on the
server is a big ask when you want someone to try your project out.

One thing that will help a lot here is if you have a Dockerfile on your repo,
this way people can build and deploy it easily. I'd even go as far as creation
a chef recipe for it. Those can seem out of scope, but can help a lot.

Anyway, this seems like a solid piece of open source. Awesome

~~~
syjer
Thanks for the feedback.

I admit that I still don't understand why java receive so much hate.

What kind of language would you prefer for a server side application and why?

For this project I've chosen java _because_ it's a boring language, I really
don't want to be enabled to write clever code that will be unreadable after
few months.

Additionally, with a jvm I've got extremely good libs/tools for developing the
application, and when in production a whole heap of monitoring tools.

So uh, sorry for liking the jvm :(.

(And it's not that I know only java, far from it...)

edit: and still, I don't think that requiring a jvm runtime is asking too
much. I mean, if you use a managed language, you will need a runtime.

~~~
Immortalin
Have you considered Go? It makes deployment easier as it statically links
everything.

~~~
syjer
I've considered Go, but it does not really fit my criteria:

\- lack of generics (sorry, but even though I kinda like go as a language
there are features that I consider mandatory)

\- lack of decent dependency handling (I don't consider vendoring a good
solution, with maven central I know that the libraries will be there forever
and there is a versioning scheme, pointing to the master branch of a git repo
is not a good solution either, I value stability)

\- lack of officially supported sql drivers and libraries like lucene (sorry
but I don't really want to depend on a random github repo, it does not give me
enough ensurance that it will be mantained)

(And I don't think that a statically linked binary/smaller binary/less memory
footprint is a good enough reason to dump the jvm and his ecosystem)

------
reeboblue
Tried running on my Ubuntu 14.04 server and got the errors below (I have MySQL
5.5, java version 1.7.0_75 and have installed libmysql-java)...

./lavagna.sh: line 54: -Ddatasource.dialect=MYSQL: command not found
./lavagna.sh: line 55: -Ddatasource.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/lavagna:
No such file or directory ./lavagna.sh: line 61:
-Ddatasource.username=lavagnauser: command not found

~~~
syjer
I've answered in the github issue
[https://github.com/digitalfondue/lavagna/issues/10](https://github.com/digitalfondue/lavagna/issues/10)
:)

------
anonbanker
like everyone else commenting, I despise java. However, I'm already using
Trello, and this looks like a near full-replacement, so I'll suck up the extra
ram usage and give it a try. thanks!

~~~
syjer
We are dogfooding the program on a small (free) openshift gear which provide
only 512 mb of ram (and we have in the same "gear" a mysql instance).

It does not use _that_ much of ram. (And yes, it has a basic trello import
functionality).

------
kkirsche
Looks cool and interesting. But it's Java so I won't be using it. While it may
the right tool it's not something I can easily deploy with low to no overhead.

------
xfalcox
This looks very good. I have been using OpenProject but my users doesn't like
it so far.

Is i18n on the roadmap?

~~~
syjer
For the i18n, the basic pieces are already there. I'll provide a guide on
how/what is needed to translate the application.

(Probably there are some issues in the gui for RTL languages and for CJK in
the full text search support)

------
zz1
Login with Persona: great, really appreciated!

~~~
syjer
Thank you, kinda sad that Persona didn't get traction :(

~~~
zz1
I wonder who is to blame: big players too interested in harvesting more data
(clearly not thinking about Facebook and Google here), or lazy developers?

------
nahtnam
Tbh you lost me at java as well...

------
stephenr
You lost me at Java

~~~
syjer
Not wanting to start a language war, but targeting the jvm give me a good
level of confidence that it will work everywhere due to his good backward
compatibility.

~~~
x5n1
it also means you need your own vps or dedicated server to run that... and
usually a pretty beefy one at that. that weeds 90% of your potential
demographic out. you might as well as do a saas with something like this. if
you want easy to deploy it should be easily deployable on a $5 digital ocean
vps or heroku.

~~~
syjer
It use a little bit more of memory than a php application for sure, but it
work on a small openshift free "gear" as we are dogfooding there (which is
512mb of ram:
[https://www.openshift.com/products/pricing](https://www.openshift.com/products/pricing))
with everything crammed in: jetty + mysql on a single node.

You can follow the guide for openshift here:
[http://lavagna.io/help/openshift/](http://lavagna.io/help/openshift/) .

I'll see if the free heroku tier work decently and provide a guide too.

(And yes, it will work on a 5usd digitalocean instance, as it's strictly more
powerfull than the free gear from openshift)

