[Pan-users] Re: Re: Anyone thought of adding par[1|2] support

[Duncan]

Mike Brodbelt posted <address@hidden>,
excerpted below,  on Sun, 18 Jul 2004 19:07:22 +0100:

>> If I were asked, I would be against this. At least on Windows XP, Pan is 
>> having serious problems and should development  continue one day, which is 
>> not very probable if I understood correctly,
> 
> I don't see why not. Charles clearly doesn't have the time at the
> moment, but others could easily step up to the plate. Free software
> doesn't often die out - it may go unmaintained for a while, but thats
> all.

While I agree with the general case of what you said, I believe the
reference here was to the PAN dependencies.  The GTK port that PAN /was/
using on MSWormOS, according to a post to the group, has been
discontinued.  I believe /that/ was what was referenced by the "serious
problems" and continuing "development... not very probable".

There IS another MSWormOS port of GTK, one referenced at the site where
the old one was.  However, it's going to require some tweaking to get it
to work and probably a good FAQ at minimum, directed at that specific
version, b4 PAN will work reliably with it.  The tweaking necessary is
likely simply above the head of many potential users, without that. 

I can honestly say I wouldn't be bothering, given the number of /other/
decent news clients on MSWormOS, INCLUDING some that frankly leave PAN
pretty much in the dust (Agent for single thread posting and filtering, 
BNR2 for automated binary reaping).  PAN has the potential of exceeding
them some day, and I've put in a lot of time on list doing what I can to
help it get there, that I would NOT be putting in if I didn't believe it
was possible/likely, but it's definitely a ways off, given that it can
neither post attachments nor decently filter/score on anything but a
limited subset of overview headers.

That said.. what you said about an MSWormOS developer willing to put some
time and priority into both GTK and PAN, would /certainly/ be a GREAT
help.  It's just that the folks with the skills seem to be interested in
Linux, and the MSWormOS folks either don't have the skills or aren't
interested in PAN if they do.

-- 
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