Any chance you'll be donating this stuff to OpenSymphony to replace the horror that is OSUser?

As shipped in Confluence 2.1 Seraph's DefaultAuthenticator seems to not play nice with Atlassian-User. Surprised the heck out of me to see OSUser in an exception stacktrace for the CASAuthenticator (http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/display/CAS/CasSeraphAuthenticator).

Hi Patrick,

We've had a few requests to offer Atlassian User under and open sourcing license. It would definitely be something we'd consider, given our attitude to open source in general. I don't know whether it'd be OpenSymphony or a general open source Atlassian project though.

Right now we're working on making the configuration layer a little simpler. It might be something we could consider after having done that.

Cheers,
Nick

Hi Jason,

We didn't alter Seraph's DefaultAuthenticator to use Atlassian User instead of OSUser. This would have annoyed anyone wanting to use the DefaultAuthenticator with a standard OSUser configuration. Instead, we created a ConfluenceAuthenticator, which overrides the OSUser specific code in the DefaultAuthenticator.

Presumably, one way to overcome the stacktrace you are seeing would be to havve your CasSeraphAuthenticator extend from com.atlassian.confluence.user.ConfluenceAuthenticator .

If you would like to discuss this further, let us know via confluence-support@atlassian.com .

Cheers,
Nick

If you were honest about open sourcing it, you'd have actually made some effort in that direction, instead of basically taking an opensymphony project, fixing its issues and enhancing it, then forking it into your own codebase.

'given our attitude to open source in general', you mean the hit and miss affair, where you brag of how much you do for OSS but are too busy right now to actually give any code?

When was the last time you put your money where your mouth is? The atlassian open source chest thumping surely needs the odd dose of reality.

Granted, people like Scott have general goodwill and go to the effort of submitting patches and contributing, but he seems to be in the dwindling minority at atlassian these days.

Hani,

Just to set a few records straight:
- Atlassian User is quite a bit different in implementation than OSUser. With regards to the LDAP stuff, the fixes that Jeff did for the LDAP provider for OS is the base for what we use in LDAP in Atlassian User. So we didn't really steal anything, and all the useful code that can be used in both was contributed back.

- I agree that our 'open source chest thumping' is perhaps reaching back a bit. I agree that the amount of code that we contribute back to open source projects is a fair bit less than we used to, but that is also a sign of the fact that the frameworks have matured to the point where we don't _need_ to extend them.

- Where we have extended / improved open source projects, we have almost always contributed them back. Given that Mike and I are the only committers for OS in Atlassian, a lot of the Atlassian patches come through me.

- In terms of the Atlassian User specifics, we only released our first product using it (Confluence) over Christmas, and we still haven't completed the XML file format for configuration. The developer who works on Atlassian User has been on holidays for the past 2 weeks, and just arrived back in town today.

Given your propensity to mock open source projects that are half-assed, with little documentation, and poor usability, I would have thought that giving us some time to open source the project with proper docs etc, would have been something you would have encouraged.

Anyhow - apologies for the rant. I hope that you more fully appreciate our position now.

Hani,

Scott's reply covers most points but I do want to say that your assumptions are, in many cases, mistaken here.

Did you stop to investigate what kind of open source work we'd done with the project? During development of Atlassian User we've contributed to the Apache Directory Server project.

Atlassian User certainly isn't a fork of OSUser. You'll have the chance to see that if it makes it to some sort of open source license.

I see your larger point. Poster boy antics about open source ethics are annoying. I don't think we're doing that, or being deceitful about what we really think, as particular sections of your comment want to imply.

Cheers,
Nick

Hi there. Our custom SSO worked greate pre AtlassianUser, and I have tried to follow the information provided and wondered if you could point me in the right direction. I think the problem I am having is in this piece of code, which creates new accounts when they do not exist:

UserAccessor userAccessor = (UserAccessor) bucket.container .ContainerManager.getInstance().getContainerContext().getComponent("userAccessor");
String[] defaultGroup={"confluence-users"};
User newUser = userAccessor.addUser(username, password, email, fullname, defaultGroup);
user = newUser;
log.debug("User created: " + username);

Any ideas greatfully received.

Hi Ricardo,

Can you please send this on to confluence-support@atlassian.com? I will keep an eye out for it and make sure we answer quickly.

We will need more information, too. What precisely is the problem? Is the account actually created? Please tell us this in the email you send to support, as the blog is not very effective for offering support.

Cheers,
Nick

Will do, thanks.