Re: Plans for ahead

[Gregory Casamento]

Fred,

On Sun, Nov 29, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Fred Kiefer <fredkiefer@gmx.de> wrote:
> Greg,
>
<content from previous message removed for brevity...  please see
previous replies>
>
> So you were talking about MS Windows? Why didn't you say so? While I am 
> myself not interested in this platform it should be very simple to package up 
> cairo_win32_printing_surface_create (HDC hdc) in a cairo backend surface and 
> use that directly while printing. I am sure you can do that in just a few 
> hours.

With respect to Windows, which I know you don't care about, but that
doesn't make it unimportant, it is, as I said before, impossible to
send a PS file to a non-PS printer without using ghostscript.    I
guess this wouldn't be a BAD thing since this is not to dissimilar to
how it was done on OSE as DPS was present on that system and did the
translation for you in a similar way.

My current approach streams the file, as is, to the printer.  This is
okay for me since I have a PS printer and it will recognize the
postscript coming in... at least in theory.   There are issues talking
to the Windows spooling mechanism using the existing code in Printing
for Windows printing.

> Apology for taking your words just as you wrote them. Next time I ask first.

Ummm, thanks, I think, for your rather disingenuous and apology such
as it is.  I have, nevertheless, found that it is beyond your capacity
to politely correct people either if you misunderstand or if a mistake
is made.   I don't mind it as I have a pretty thick skin, but it is
unfortunate, however, that it's cost us potential developers in the
past.  Just being honest.

>>>> 6) Lack of support for Wayland.   While this is not high on the list
>>>> (it is #6 guys) it is something that, if we had taken the initiative
>>>> in the beginning, we would have been one of the first adopters of it
>>>> and that in and of itself would have gotten us some attention.
>>>
>>> For years now I have suggested to work on a Wayland backend as soon as 
>>> somebody takes over normal development and support on gui and back. Getting 
>>> an initial implementation working should be a matter of just a few days, 
>>> getting all functionality fully correct takes much longer.
>>> This is similar to the opal backend, which I am actually working on in the 
>>> moment, in that we have something basic there, but nobody would want to use 
>>> it in that state.
>>
>> My point was that this should have been something we jumped on from
>> the beginning.    I fully understand what is involved and that it is
>> far from simple.
>>
>> I am not making any of these points as a matter of blame.   I'm simply
>> pointing out observations that I have made and facts that I know about
>> things we need to address in GNUstep.
>
> "would have", "should have", maybe I am missing your point here as well. Is 
> this just reflection about the past or is there something for the present and 
> the future as well?

I will re-iterate more simply so you can understand: I'm only
enumerating a list of things which need attention and our current
state on some things, nothing more.    I'm not sure how I can be any
clearer than that.  While we "Should have" jumped on Wayland, and
there is still time for us to do so.

GC
-- 
Gregory Casamento
GNUstep Lead Developer / OLC, Principal Consultant
http://www.gnustep.org - http://heronsperch.blogspot.com
http://ind.ie/phoenix/