[Pan-users] Re: has development of pan stopped since januari 2004?

[Duncan]

Duncan posted <address@hidden>, excerpted below,
on Thu, 11 Nov 2004 02:41:36 +0000:

> Nicolas Girard <address@hidden> writes:
>  
>> you may be interesting in trying a newsreader I discovered a while ago:
>> KLibido (http://klibido.sourceforge.net/)
>  
> Interesting!

*VERY* interesting, now that I've had a chance to go look at it (tho I
haven't actually downloaded and installed it just yet).

Feature list, modified a bit from NG's list:

* Based on KDE 3.2+ (PAN's based on GTK2+)

* BINARY HARVESTER ONLY (no posting and not a text reader)

* Full multi-part support

* Fully automated multi-server support, with priorities and fallback
  (Note that this is more advanced than PAN, but of course PAN does
  posting and text while klibido doesn't.)

* Multi-threaded per server and between servers

* New application, fast development (but it remains to be seen if that
  will continue over time).  First entry in the changelog is 2004.08.03

* Berkley DB backend (where PAN uses the GTK+ widget limited data support
  and handles its own backend, currently, and looks to be switching to
  SQLite in the future).
  
>> - Please beware of optimizations when compiling ; Klibido crashed
>> several times when using optimizations on my box, and apperaed to be
>> more stable withour optimizations.

The site now warns about optimizations as well.  It'll be interesting to
see if those warnings apply to AMD64 (and of course to see if it compiles
at all on AMD64).

The site specifically mentions Gentoo several times, altho no ebuild is
provided, so there are apparently a number of Gentoo tarball install
users.  That's on top of the Mandrake you mentioned, and the Debian, SuSE
9.1/9.2, and FC2 mentions at the site (all with binary packages available,
except Gentoo, which generally builds from source anyway, altho an ebuild
script would be handy -- maybe I'll submit one).
  
>> Duncan, I know [] SQLite [is being considered] for Pan's backend[.]
>> Alessandro, the main Klibido developer, chose to use Berkeley DB...
>> perhaps you'll be more successfull than I to try & convince him to
>> consider giving SQLite a serious try ?
>  
> I'm not really a db expert myself, either.  I don't know anything about
> the comparative performance aspects of the two, but from what I've read,
> there are a number of other aspects to consider.
>  
> 1)  BerkDB is *VERY* commonly already installed on *ix.
>  
> 2)  SQLite is format-compatible with MySQL, [which] opens up ALL SORTS
> of interesting possibilities.
>  
> 3)  BerkDB's **BIGGEST** liability [is] inter-version format changes.
>  
> I'm guessing he used BerkDB because it's so common and he was already
> familiar with it [so it's likely easier for him to work with.  He
> probably has little reason to need compatibility with anything else,
> either.]
>
> Aside from me not being the one to make the case as I really don't know
> what I'm talking about, if the above is correct, I'm not sure that
> switching /would/ be the right decision. Yes, it would /ultimately/ be
> better, /if/ it ever gets there.  However, keep in mind that he's got
> the working prioritized multi-server implementation that PAN's only
> dreaming about, at this point. [That's more than PAN has, with it's
> supposedly "better" choice that hasn't yet been implemented.]

Some philosophy and background...

I switched to Linux in part because I had reached the practical limit of
"hobbyist" development in MSWormOS.  Simply stated, progressing further
was going to take far more resources than I had to devote to it, as a
hobby, yet I wasn't really interested in taking it professional.  I
couldn't put a finger on it then, altho by the time I switched I had
/some/ idea, but looking back, I've always been an open source "true
believer" and really wasn't comfortable turning pro and charging folks for
what I instinctively believed should be free to be shared.  Thus, I always
intended to get back into development on Linux, altho it is and continues
to be a painfully slow process. (Still, looking at it from the perspective
that I was on MSDOS/MSWormOS for a decade, and I had to dump a good
portion of that system knowledge when I switched to Linux, I'm not doing
/too/ bad at three years.  I'm already ahead in system knowledge, and will
probably be even in programming by five years, half the time it took me on
MSWormOS, tho I had sort of hoped to do it in three.)

The common wisdom of open source holds that most programs initially get
started to scratch an itch, fill a need, the developer has.  Thus, along
with other motivating factors, a developer should really be interested in
the projects he's working on, if he is to do more than the single trivial
patch submission or two.  (This is true to an extent where money is
involved, but FAR more so where it's a hobby, as is the case with much of
open source.)

I've long figured that if/when I go get serious with open source
programming, a news application would likely be my first project, since
I've quite an interest there so it fits that "personal itch" requirement. 
PAN always looked to be the closest fit to my interests in that field,
altho in general I'm more naturally at home with KDE, and had often
thought to myself "if only PAN were KDE based.  Until now, lacking the
coding ability, I contributed to PAN where I could -- by being a constant
presence on the lists/groups and answering questions as I could.  Of help
was the general scripting and VB/OSAPI coding background I had from
MSWormOS, along with my growing knowledge of Linux as an OS.  Thus, I
believe I've been able to serve as somewhat of a go-between, between the
developer group and developer-speak, and user's ideas and questions. 
That's an important role (so I think anyway <g>) and I've been happy to
fill it.

Anyway, it would now appear that klibido /might/ just be the opportunity
I've been looking for, to scratch that news itch on KDE.  It's possible
(I'm not going to say probable just yet, after all, I haven't even
installed the program yet, let alone contacted the lead developer <g>)
klibido will be my first serious code contributory project.  If time
brings that about, I may just have the opportunity to make the case for
SQLite -- or not, if BerkDB was chosen for a good reason.  Of course,
that's where I was headed with all the above <g>, but there's a bit more
to it as well.

If that happens, I'll probably lower my profile in the PAN groups/lists.
(I get these mailing lists as groups on gmane.org -- I really DO prefer
news to mail, and news is /really/ a personal itch that I hope to
scratch.)  Whether I'll keep PAN for my text group work or switch to
KNode, now that I won't have to worry about binary groups, since klibido
will be handling them (still presuming it works as advertised and that I
can even compile and install it on AMD64), I don't know, since I haven't
used KNode in a /long/ while.  On the one hand, I've very familiar with
PAN and would like to continue using it, if only for text groups.  On the
other, switching to KNode would mean I could dump a lot of GTK stuff,
since PAN is about all I have using it.  (Tho I think XMMS does, but maybe
I'd switch to Noatun or KJuk or something, if I didn't need GTK for PAN.)

Also, with development apparently restarting on PAN just recently, if as
planned a quick bugfix release is followed by integration of SQLite, PAN's
binary harvester feature-set could suddenly be improving by leaps and
bounds as well.  Thus, perhaps klibido won't stay the front runner for
long, particularly since it doesn't do text or posting and PAN does. 
Thus, even if I DO take a break from PAN, who knows, maybe I'll be back in
a year or 18 months myself, just as Charles seems to be, after his break.
<g>

Of course, also of significance is that klibido is very new, as I
mentioned, first changelog entry being 2004.08.03.  It's entirely possible
it would have never come to pass, if PAN development hadn't stalled.  The
author may have stayed with PAN and contributed to its further development
instead, if it had seemed it was going anywhere this past summer. 
However, if he's more comfortable in KDE and with C++ anyway, and with PAN
apparently stalled, he probably decided it was easier to start his own
project than work on and possibly take over lead development of PAN, which
isn't in his evidently preferred environment anyway.

So.. we'll see what happens...

One more thing...  it'd be interesting to see if there's some code that
might be sharable between apps.  The klibido author /does/ ACK PAN as the
source of some of his icons (in the screen shots, I recognized the green
complete puzzle piece for complete multi-part posts), so he's already
borrowed that.  Presumably he didn't find a lot else to borrow, likely
because of implementation language differences (C vs C++).  However, that
doesn't mean it can't happen in the future, perhaps as library components
or something, or that PAN may not ultimately find something in klibido
worth borrowing, when PAN implements automated prioritized multi-server
handling.  (Conversely, the lack of said feature in PAN, as well as the
language and GUI toolkit differences, may have had a lot to do with why
he apparently found little in PAN other than the icons, of use.)

Again, I guess we see what happens...

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin