Re: Building SOPE with GNUstep

[Helge Hess]

On 05.03.2004, at 11:11, David Ayers wrote:
> I use plain CVS versions of -make, -base and SOPE (I do not have 
> Cocoa) but the problems I encountered were make file setup and libxml 
> configuration dependent.  I'll update again and attach the output.

I think I used gstep-make 1.8 on Cocoa, not sure (current is 1.9+ I 
guess). Its unfortunate that gstep-make API changes do not lead to a 
new major revision :-|

> I can't comment on the WO4.5 API compatibility. (I do notice though 
> that you consistently omit the version when talking about 
> compatibility, which makes me wonder whether it may be 4.0 or even 3.x 
> which you may be referring to, so maybe you can clarify.)

I'm referring to WO 4.5. The only major changes where done between WO 
2.0 and WO 3.0 as you probably know. We are also adding some 5.2 
extensions (like streaming) which may be relevant as well though never 
available in ObjC WO.

> And, yes, I'll take you up on the offer to look at some of the 
> optimizations you have implemented.

Sure, its LGPL ;-)

> > Consider SOPE. This will make you jump 10 steps ahead (AGAIN: not 
> > because gstep-web developers are less capable but just because way 
> > more time went into SOPE!). This helps *everyone*. Its "only" hard 
> > because you need to abandon code.
>
> This is dependent of on
> - portability / interoperability with GNUstep (i.e. base) on the 
> platforms supported by GNUstep

Of course it needs to be fully ported and working on GNUstep 
(make/base[/GDL2]). This is an obvious precondition before SOPE makes 
sense in a GNUstep context.
There is no question on that.

> - FSF copyright assignment

I guess we cannot solve that.

> - formal coding issues.

Not sure what you mean by that.

> As SOPE is LGPL and you don't see yourself capable/willing of 
> assigning the copyright to the FSF, I'm also fine with people using 
> SOPE instead of GSWeb if they feel more comfortable with it.  
> Personally, I prefer to complete the 'official' GNUstep package.

Since the 'official' GNUstep also uses non-FSF assigned code thats a 
pretty weird limitation.
But anyway, not going to argue on that, if you consider a FSF 
assignment not even valid in Europe nor implemented in CVS more 
important than we proably won't find a solution.

> > We'll do. GDL2 is probably the next thing to make people happy asking 
> > for EOF/MacOSX support. Its great to hear that you want to work with 
> > us on this, so finally we have anothing thing to share.
> Not quite sure what you're insinuating, but yes, you, and everyone 
> else in the world (baring and legal export restrictions :-) ) is 
> welcome to use this code (GSWeb and GDL2) under the corresponding 
> license and report issues they find which we (and I'm sure this 
> includes Manuel) will try to address.

Well, this sounds like GDL2 is a closed project. Of course we do fixes 
on our own and either get them incorporated (of course better) or fork 
(less than ideal).

> But when it comes to building SOPE on GNUstep, understand that I have 
> other priorities.

I already wrote several times that no one is expecting that from you. A 
cooperation is a two way thing. Of course OGo project members will work 
to improve GNUstep related things as well as to port OGo libraries to 
current recent things in case something is received in return.
In the actual case of the GS port, this is already taken on by several 
volunteers.

The goal of a GNUstep/OGo is to avoid duplicate coding of the same 
stuff. That this implies some prior work on streamlining available 
things on both sides is somewhat obvious.
If you priority is to reimplement already existing things, I'm fine 
with that. After all cooperation was just a suggestion.

> IOW: if you can look at my log and tell me rather precisely what I 
> forgot or have to tweak, I may try another build in a couple of days, 
> but I can't investigate.

Just wait until the port is finished, we'll drop a line when its done. 
As mentioned the goal is to reuse the gstep-base library for the 
official Debian packages of OGo, so there is some focus on that.

Prior trying to build, you should check:
  http://www.opengroupware.org/en/projects/gnustep/
on the status.

regards,
  Helge
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