Re: Adding functions to octave base?

[c.]

On 3 Aug 2010, at 06:19, address@hidden wrote:

> I would imagine that the maintainers of the offsite packages would  
> be willing
> (maybe even happy) to maintain their code in the main tree.
>  I am sure there
> would be some fringe types who wouldn't, but they could go their own  
> way. And if
> the package isn't being maintained in SF, I bet it is (at least a  
> little) more
> likely to find a maintainer if it is the main tree.

This is not really that simple.

Actually, rules for accepting code in OF are much less strict than in  
octave proper,
the extra effort needed to get the code on par with the high quality  
standards of the Octave
and to keep it up-to-date with the quickly evolving development  
sources would scare away most OF contributors and we badly need as many
contributors as possible.

On the other hand, most Octave users do not need some of the  
functionality implemented in OF forge packages,
e.g. I never used any signal processing or socket communications  
functions, and I would not want an Octave release to be
postponed because of work being done in these areas, although I  
understand many other users do and would be terribly annoyed if the  
corresponding packages were to be removed because of lack of  
maintainance.

So, although the OF can definetily use a lot of improvement, I beleive  
the decoupling between the two projects is a good thing.
It follows the model of the separation between Matlab and enhancement  
toolboxes, and, actualy, many times in the past the choice about what  
to keep in Octave core and what to keep in OF has been to mimic the ML/ 
TB structure.

As for your own code, I would say just go ahead and propose a patch to  
Octave-core if you beleive it belongs there, this way others will be  
able to evaluate it an see if it is of enough general interest to be  
included with the main project. If not, preparing an OF is the way to  
go, and if you don't like the current status of OF you are very  
welcome to propose patches and improvements.

c.