Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] Re: [Savannah-register-public] [task #9048] Submission of Mudlet

[Ted Smith]

On Sun, 2009-01-25 at 10:11 +0100, Sebastian Gerhardt wrote:
> Hi Ted,
> 
> 
> On Fri, 2009-01-23 at 19:05 -0500, Ted Smith wrote:
> > Taking stab #2 at the whole "reviewing projects" thing -- My notes on
> > this project:
> 
> thanks for your help.
> I saw the first maintainer still hasn't answered yet. Do you think we
> should give him a time limit?
> 
> 
I'm not sure what standard procedure is. In a few days it'll have been a
month since we initiated contact, though -- that seems like a fitting
time to ping him.

> > LuaGlobal.lua -- no copyright statement
> > dlgTimersMainArea -- no copyright statement (file is trivial)
> > dlgSystemMessageArea.cpp -- no copyright statement (file is trivial)
> > dlgTriggersMainArea.cpp -- no copyright statement (file is trivial)
> > ctelnet.cpp -- GPL seems applied incorrectly, copyright date range
> > 
> > No copyright notice in /src/ui (XML data files)
> > No copyright notice on flowchart in /src/doc
> > No copyright notice pertaining to any of the images, in /src or in 
> > /src/icons
> > No overarching project README
> > Dependancies not clear (QT4, Lua, ?qcsi?)
> > 
> > Uses term "linux" in name of linux.conf, and in about_dialog.ui.
> > 
> > "Documentation" has no license.
> > 
> > Project already has its own website and sourceforge account.
> > 
> > *NB*: I do not have KDevelop installed and thus could not browse the
> > source the way the developer intended.
> > 
> > Should I clean this up into something that can be sent to the developer?
> 
> This looks fine to me. Of course, some flaws are more serious than
> others and I usually try to hint the maintainer about this. For example,
> the unclear licensing of the media files will certainly block the
> package until this has been sorted out whereas the README is more like a
> recommendation. If the sparse documentation has no explicit license text
> in them, it would be ok if the author writes about this in the README.
> 
> I woulnd't object if a file is called "linux.conf". Often, targets in
> makefiles are labeled "linux" too and we don't mind. But in any
> "advertising" context, we should be firm. (Program output and dialogs,
> project description, etc.)
> 
Specifically, their "About" page says that someone " is in charge of
developing and building binary packages of Mudlet for Linux, Windows and
Apple."

> 
> As regarding the trivial files, I rate them on the question whether they
> will be likely to grow in the course of time. If they do, the maintainer
> can as well put proper copyright&licensing text in them right away. And
> if we tell him now, he will most probably keep up this practice in the
> future. The same goes for the date ranges.
> 
> The maintainers are welcome to have they own project homepages but they
> should give a statement about what they plan to do with the sourgeforge
> account.
> 
I found this out after I sent that email: they apparently also have a
Launchpad account which they use for bug tracking. I'm guessing that has
the same treatment as a Sourceforge account?

> Again, thanks for you help in reviewing such a big package.
> 
> Sebastian
> 
I've since discovered (from here:
http://forums.mudlet.org/topic/mudlet-pre-alpha-installation-notes ) the
full list of dependences:
* QT 4 development tools - GPLv(2|3)
  * qscintilla version 2.2 or higher - GPLv2(only?) and Modified BSD
  * lua version 5.1 or higher - Modified BSD
which of course are all free.

It also seems that Mudlet builds on Windows, and that a lot of
development takes place with Windows as a target. Could this be
problematic, or one of the things that we ask the developer about?

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