Re: Cocotron

[Helge Hess]

On Dec 24, 2006, at 10:39, Richard Frith-Macdonald wrote:
> > SOPE/OGo works perfectly fine on libFoundation *and* Cocoa, but it  
> > doesn't work with GNUstep. Now its quite some research work to  
> > find out why and fix it.
> Sure, but people will help if you want to do it ... however we need  
> someone on the SOPE/OGo side, who understands how it all works and  
> what the problems are, to list issues in enough detail to make it a  
> reasonable way to spend time.  For instance, pointing out what (if  
> anything) is wrong with KVC support in GNUstep-base, rather than  
> just saying that the area is problematic.

Finding out what the problems are is the task to do (if I would knew  
specifics I would just do the fix). And personally I don't have the  
time to work on it currently. I've had a look on the issue several  
times in the last years with no (easy) success. Always lost interest  
after a while :-/

(Stuff like you start out porting to gnustep-base only to find out  
that you first need to get KVC support in shape ... So you basically  
stop the effort and only come back a year later to give it another  
try [hoping that the situation might have improved]).



> > >  I believe it can also support the extension in libFoundation if  
> > > someone asks.
> > Neither SOPE nor OGo depend on libFoundation. In fact both work  
> > just fine on Cocoa.
> Because you took the effort to port/develop for cocoa.  I haven't  
> spent much time looking at SOPE/OGo, but what time I did spend on  
> it was enough to notice some #ifdef options etc to cope with the  
> different systems.

Thats incorrect. I've spend at least the same amount of time on  
GNUstep porting, only with less success.


> > >  But if license is the issue, there is almost nothing people can do.
> > I'm fine with LGPL, this was never a point for me. I don't know  
> > whether it was a strong point for Ovidiu when he started  
> > libFoundation, but I don't think so.
> I believe Ovidiu objected to assigning copyright to the FSF more  
> than licensing.  At least, that was what I understood from my few  
> email conversations with him.

You are probably right.


> > >  As for the place to install (/usr/loca/lib or GNUstep/System/ 
> > > Libraries),
> > >  gnustep-base works on both ways with right settings.
> > Even if this is the case (nobody seems to use it!)
> I've tried it out, just to check it works ... but of course I'm  
> familiar/happy with the normal layout, so I don't do it routinely.   
> In practice you are probably correct hat nobody uses it (though I'm  
> often surprised by what the silent users of the software turn out  
> to be doing).

Yes, it probably works now.


> > producing packages which install it properly also takes some more  
> > days(/weeks).
> Yes, good packaging is very time consuming.

Well, its not that bad. Its probably just a few days to update the  
specfiles and write one for gnustep-base. But then a few days are a  
lot of time if you are busy with other stuff
:-/

> > As a rough guess I think it would take about 2...4 weeks to get a  
> > (deployable) port. Its the typical 90/10 rule that the last 10%  
> > take 90% the time. We don't need a prototype showing SOPE/OGo  
> > running on gstep-base, but a solid solution meeting basic QA  
> > expectations.
> How about spending the couple of days to get a prototype, then  
> publicise it and let other people find the rough edges and smooth  
> them out?

Well, there are plenty of OGo community members who are willing to  
try/test stuff. But they  need packages and a basically working  
system, not a prototype.


> > Actually I do think that gstep-base is slowly improving (adding  
> > FHS etc), but I suppose the issue is that the core developers have  
> > a different viewpoint on it (ie they don't think that proper FHS  
> > support or Unix/Linux integration is crucial etc).
> Well, only Nicola works on gnustep-make generally (you are probably  
> the second most expert person on gnustep-make after him) and you  
> know how busy he is on other things.
> If you have tracked the mailing lists, you should be aware that all  
> the core developers are in favor of having FHS compliant  
> installation available as an option. So, since you are probably the  
> person best placed to do it, and since you know we would be happy  
> to accept such a contribution, why not have a chat with Nicola (to  
> avoid any clash if you are both working on the same thing) and just  
> add it?

I don't think I have the know-how to do it. The way I did it in  
libFoundation / SOPE is a major (but working) hack.
But as mentioned, I think stuff has improved in the meantime and most  
likely it now works the way I would expect it to work.


> As I've said, I'm interested in helping/doing this ... but I've got  
> a lot of other stuff I want to do too, so I need pointing in the  
> right direction to work in small, managable chunks.  I imagine  
> that, if you could do make package stuff (ie install everything in  
> the places you want it) and point me to specific issues in the base  
> library, I can address the base library issues.

Maybe I give it yet another look over the holidays.

Greets,
  Helge
--
Helge Hess
http://docs.opengroupware.org/Members/helge/