[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Merging Octave and Octave-Forge?
From: |
Thomas Weber |
Subject: |
Re: Merging Octave and Octave-Forge? |
Date: |
Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:10:38 +0200 |
Am Dienstag, den 26.08.2008, 11:41 -0400 schrieb John W. Eaton:
> On 25-Aug-2008, address@hidden wrote:
>
> | As I've recently announced a new release of Octave-Forge has just
> | been made. Whenever I make these releases the same thought pops up in
> | my head: "why does Octave-Forge even exist?".
>
> I think it exists because several people thought I was too slow to
> accept contributed code in the core Octave distribution. Also, it is
> nice to have a place where people can work collaboratively on
> contributed code. Much of that code is domain specific and not really
> suitable for the core Octave distribution in any case.
I guess we can ignore the historical reasons for its existence. There
was a question just last week about an equivalent to M.'s file exchange,
so people are looking for a place to share code.
> It would be very helpful to me if someone (or group) were to take over
> the web site.
>
> | However,
> | maintaining the Octave-Forge website is plenty of work, so I'm
> definitely
> | not volunteering for the job of also maintaining octave.org. So why not
> | merge the websites into one?
>
> If they are merged, then you are effectively saying that the
> contributed packages are part of the (GNU) Octave project, so then I
> think the packages would need to all agree to the principles of the
> GNU project in the same way as I did when I agreed to make Octave a
> GNU project. Is that what you (and all current and future
> contributors) want?
That is probably impossible (octave-forge has quite some different
licenses already).
> | * The Windows binary at Octave-Forge currently is the de-facto way
> | of getting
> | Octave on Windows. I really think this binary is a great feature, and I
> | honestly think it should be hosted at octave.org, and be blessed as the
> | semi-official way of getting Octave on Windows.
>
> If we distribute a binary of Octave for Windows from ftp.gnu.org, then
> I think it should be built with MinGW, not MSVC. What is the
> situation for Emacs? Is the Windows binary of Emacs built with MinGW?
It shouldn't be too difficult to continue shipping the MSVC build from
SF. Now, a MinGW build via gnu.org would probably be nice as well.
>
> | * One reason for the Octave/Octave-Forge split is that the Octave mailing
> | lists shouldn't be spammed with mails from people who have problems
> with
> | the Octave-Forge functions. These people should use the
> | Octave-Forge mailing
> | lists. However, this isn't really happening at the moment. Everybody
> just
> | seems to use the 'help' octave mailing list.
>
> One problem here is that it is not clear to people which functions
> come from Octave Forge and which are core functions.
I agree, but as Soren has correctly stated, we already have that
situation today, where stuff is actually clearly separated and users
still confuse it.
> | * The Octave-Forge infrastructure (SVN, release management, servers and
> | bandwidth, ...) are very nice to have available. But honestly, this
> | infrastructure just isn't very good. Their servers are slow, and the
> | release process is very painful.
>
> I'm not sure savannah is much better, but I recently found that they
> now support Mercurial so I'm hoping to be able to move my public
> archive there (there will still be a redirect from octave.org).
I have the feeling that due to the way Octave packages work, no
off-the-shelf hosting solution will work.
Thomas
- Re: Merging Octave and Octave-Forge?, (continued)
- Re: Merging Octave and Octave-Forge?, John W. Eaton, 2008/08/27
- Re: Merging Octave and Octave-Forge?, David Bateman, 2008/08/27
- Re: Merging Octave and Octave-Forge?, Thomas Weber, 2008/08/27
- Re: Merging Octave and Octave-Forge?, David Bateman, 2008/08/27
- Re: Merging Octave and Octave-Forge?, Bill Denney, 2008/08/28
- Re: Merging Octave and Octave-Forge?, David Bateman, 2008/08/27
Re: Merging Octave and Octave-Forge?, Benjamin Lindner, 2008/08/26
Re: Merging Octave and Octave-Forge?,
Thomas Weber <=
Re: Merging Octave and Octave-Forge?, Jonathan Stickel, 2008/08/27