[DotGNU]Summary of today's irc meetings

[Norbert Bollow]

The DotGNU Informer -- Volume 1, Issue No. 1

Here's a summary of today's irc meetings.  (For info on DotGNU's irc
channel and on the weekly meetings, please refer to
http://dotgnu.org/irc.html ).

C# class libraries
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* nb will create a ThingsThatNeedToBeDone Wiki page and put something
  there about the need to make the Mono libs usable with pnet.  (It's
  important to communicate better to new people what are the
  interesting and important issues that cry for someone to tackle them.)

* For getting Gtk# to work, rhysw will look into putting a
  "libgtk-win32-2.0.0.map" file in the standard pnet library
  directory, which describes the library mappings.  This .map file
  will contain the DllImportMap information.

GUI Toolkits
~~~~~~~~~~~~
* What should be DotGNU's "native" GUI toolkit?  Maybe equally support
  Gtk, Qt and XWT.  XWT is interesting because we need to be able to
  "project" Webservice GUIs onto remote machines, including machines
  that run proprietary OSes.

* For functionality that is available in all three toolkits, maybe
  provide an API that abstracts from the specific toolkit.

What should be posted to "announce"?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* How should the "announce" mailing list be used?  After thinking
  about the question, nb suggests that it should be used only for
  things that are genuinely news.  For example, "pnet now runs on
  handhelds" is news, while "pnet releases new version" isn't news,
  unless it's a huge milestone or a fix of serious security bugs.

The new pnet-developers mailing list
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Part of the rationale of the new  pnet-developers  mailing list is
  that there are important parts of DotGNU besides pnet, and too much
  pnet technical stuff on the developers list will create a false
  impression.

Proposals system for development projects
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* The formal proposals system (which was described on the website
  until recently) hasn't worked, and has been officially declared
  obsolete.

* Everyone is free to hack, and describe their work on the Wiki.
  (On the Wiki pages, include information on what is officially
  part of DotGNU and what is a proposal).

* As it says on the DotGNU website, DotGNU is "a system that truly
  belongs to the developers, not to some profit-oriented monopolistic
  company.  We want compatibility with .NET for practical reasons, but
  otherwise the contributing developers determine what the system will
  be like.  This is our system."  nb points out that it says "the
  contributing developers", not "Steering Committee" or anything like
  that.  The Steering Committee is there to facilitate the process,
  to keep the vision alive, and to be a connection to the larger GNU
  project, and that's it.

* GNU still decides what development projects and packages become
  officially part of DotGNU.  nb promises to regularly look over
  the new stuff on the Wiki and initiate the process of making some
  packages officially part of DotGNU (and thereby also part of GNU)
  when he feels that that is appropriate.  nb points out that there
  is a Wiki page which lists all Steering Committee members, who can
  all be contacted about such matters.

Database model and query language
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* There has been some good discussion, and Wiki pages will be made
  about this.

Greetings, Norbert.

-- 
Founder & Steering Committee member of http://gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/
Free Software Business Strategy Guide   --->  http://FreeStrategy.info
Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet (near Zurich, Switzerland)
Tel +41 1 972 20 59        Fax +41 1 972 20 69       http://norbert.ch