Ideas, Suggestions; A Question

Hi,

Was thinking about asking for ideas or suggestions regarding a PHP project I've been working on, but as what I was wanting to ask about concerns the project as a whole as opposed to any particular section of code and as it's not specifically asking about something I'm having any problems with.. Would it be okay to ask?

Although the guidelines to this forum (Programming -> PHP) well document the do's and don'ts so far as actual scripts and code-snippets are concerned, they don't specifically mention anything one way or the other regarding audit requests for or threads regarding whole projects in general.

Thanks in advanced for your replies.

 

Thanks Sarahk; I appreciate the help.

The project in question, I've released as GNU/GPL, so, although there's probably fairly limited scope for potential commercialisation, any parties interested are more than welcome and encouraged to approach it and utilise it *however they see fit (*within scope permissible by GNU/GPL).

As a quick introduction:

The project is called "phpMussel" (available via http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmussel/), and is an attempt to leverage the anti-viral database of ClamAV (also available under GNU/GPL) to detect and block trojans, viruses, malware and other malintented files uploaded to the websites of those that choose to implement it to their websites.

(( May notice the author name on the project is different from my username here. If anyone is curious about that.. Basically, I just registered here under a different name, because, when I first registered here, I didn't know much about these forums and wasn't sure how much I wanted to contribute. In hindsight, I probably would've registered the same username here that I've been mostly using elsewhere, but, at the same time, neither name bothers me and I don't particularly feel like re-registering for a secondary account at this point. ))

Although there are plenty of scripts and packages freely available on the internet that are already able to achieve this via shell access or via piping to an anti-virus program already installed on the host machine.. phpMussel is more primarily targeted to those where such options aren't necessarily viable, such as where shell access isn't available, or where there is no actual anti-virus installed on the host machine - This is particularly common with the cheaper budget-end shared hosting solutions that webhosts will offer and with those host machines that the hostmaster may believe aren't infectable in and of themselves (which, while rather debatable in itself, even if we assume a host machine isn't infectable.. that in itself provides zero comfort to the users of a website hosted on such machines, which may themselves still be infected by an infectious file upload).

If there is anti-virus protection already provided for a particular website via its host machine, then, I'd suggest that, although phpMussel should do the job correctly, it probably isn't necessary nor would it be an ideal choice, for both reasons of unnecessary duplication and for reason that it's not going to measure up to a commercial anti-virus solution (it's ultimately a simple php script at heart, regardless of how elaborate it may seem or could be made to become, and I'm not a dedicated commercial vendor myself). However.. If there isn't anti-virus protection already in place, and if it isn't actually possible to get commercial anti-virus protection in place (or if the job is up to someone who isn't entirely reliable for doing it), then, that's where phpMussel could ideally step-in.

Anyhow.. Long story short.. Looking for ideas and suggestions (aside from those things already listed on the to-do list included with the package)! No matter how good or bad I may personally think something is, it doesn't necessarily mean that the next person is going to think the same thing, and no matter what ideas I come up with, they may not necessarily always be the same ideas that the next person can come up with, and although I'm not aware of any major *problems with it at this point (*there's currently a small bug in the updater under CLI that I've already fixed, but it doesn't effect normal operation, so I'm holding out until the next scheduled release to release it with any other changes that may end up being made, rather than releasing it immediately), it's always possible that I may have missed something, so... Assuming anyone was willing to take a look, I was hoping I could get some feedback on it.

Although I don't want to immediately sound negative or rejecting of ideas.. Probably one thing I would mention though, because it seems to be a question that has come up almost every time I've asked for ideas about the project before (this is the first time I've ever asked for ideas about the project via a forum other than with the community where the idea for the project was first spawned, but, I have asked a handful of people in person that I know that are also interested in programming) - Why did I choose PHP as the programming language for the project instead other other languages (that whomever is asking usually thinks is better) and why won't I shift to a different language? Answer: Because that's a part of what the project is actually for - The protection of PHP powered sites - And therefore, as PHP is the target, it'd be silly for me to use a different language, regardless of whether a different language may or may not be better (I don't like the idea of doing a project that targets a particular language but writing it in a different language, though, if someone wants it written in a different language, because it's GNU/GPL, they're more than welcome to fork a version of their own).

Otherwise though, anything you can think of, I'd be very interested in hearing; All constructive feedback, negative or positive alike, can be helpful.

As a side-note.. Although, as I've done so thus far, I'm more than capable of dealing with all aspects of the actual coding into the future where necessary, one thing I'm slightly less capable of doing but hope to improve on is multilingual support - The only language I speak fluently is English, and I've managed to write complete translations for French and Italian by myself based with what I -think- I know (which, I think and hope are accurate, but I won't know for sure until someone who does speak those language fluently can verify it one way or the other), a complete translation for Indonesian with significant help from a native speaker and currently have someone working on a complete translation for German that's almost finished, but, because I only speak English fluently, I doubt I'll be able to expand much further than where it's already at by myself, so, -if- anyone was interested in helping (although that's a slightly different subject than PHP in itself and not the primary purpose of this thread), I'd love to get them on-board (could PM or email me, I suppose, or post directly to the project; whichever is easiest for them).

Also, glad to be here. ^.^

PS, difficult to ask what I wanted to ask without introducing what it is I'm asking asking about, and I'm guessing that so long as it's in-line with the subject of the forum that it's okay, but, I don't like overstepping my boundaries, so if any of this seems slightly spammy at all, please let me know and I'll redact it or try to get it sorted out.

Edit: Spelling error.

 

Very good advice, Sarah