Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
Graeme Geldenhuys schrieb: Well, let me just say that the idea of two RTL's is rather ridiculous too!! It's not different from Delphi, where the introduction of UnicodeString required a renewed RTL, VCL and IDE. Who should do the same for FPC and Lazarus, and tell the users that they either have to stay with an old (frozen) Ansi release, or must upgrade all their code and component libraries to the new strings, RTL and LCL? IMO a typical loose-loose situation :-( Anyway, I can see where this thread is heading... just another waist of time. So I'll stop here. Yeah DoDi ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
On 22/12/12 16:43, Marco van de Voort wrote: > I think you have a wrong idea on what the core list contains. LOL. And how is anybody supposed to know what goes on - it is a PRIVATE mailing list. > I don't think direction on unicode (or even general) came up since the last > unicode discussions on fpc-devel/pascal. OK, so once again it is proven that Unicode is just not "sexy" enough for the core team, so it will stay stagnant for a few more years. That's unless a member ignores all discussions and does his own thing [or gets paid for the job]. As Florian likes to says so often, whoever implements it decides. Unfortunately that courtesy is not extended to non-members, because what good is a patch [of such magnitude and effort] with no chance of ever being committed. So we are at the mercy of the FPC gods. Many of use non-core developers have given our input with multiple solutions, to try and help the private discussions along. But I guess all of us are not knowledgeable enough people. What a nice F*** Y** to the community. Well, let me just say that the idea of two RTL's is rather ridiculous too!! You guys keep bitching about not having enough developers, so how on earth do you think you are going to be able to maintain developing two RTL's, patching too RTL's when bugs are reported, inform the public to remember to mention which RTL they are using when reporting bugs, keeps those two RTL's in sync over time etc. Yeah, it seams you guys are sometimes not to knowledgeable either. All you are going to do is create more work for yourselves. But hey, who are we to state the obvious. Anyway, I can see where this thread is heading... just another waist of time. So I'll stop here. Regards, - Graeme - ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
On 22.12.2012 20:03, Martin Schreiber wrote: On Saturday 22 December 2012 19:09:27 Florian Klämpfl wrote: Am 22.12.2012 11:23, schrieb Martin Schreiber: I propose to extend and render more precisely the mission goals of FPC and to concentrate the power on the defined goals. And you think people will work on this defined goals instead of maybe completely other projects? Yes. It is a pleasure to work for a project which reaches the goals. If I had to adhere to goals that I don't see fit I'd not have the enjoyment I currently have when working on FPC. Remember: I (and the other devs) work on this in their free time. At least I have enough goals to adhere to either in university or at work. I don't need another project where I need to do this which I additionally work voluntarily on. Reagrds, Sven ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
On Saturday 22 December 2012 19:09:27 Florian Klämpfl wrote: > Am 22.12.2012 11:23, schrieb Martin Schreiber: > > I propose to extend and render more precisely the mission goals of FPC > > and to concentrate the power on the defined goals. > > And you think people will work on this defined goals instead of maybe > completely other projects? Yes. It is a pleasure to work for a project which reaches the goals. Martin ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
On Saturday 22 December 2012 19:09:27 Florian Klämpfl wrote: > > > I must say, in MSEide+MSEgui project the things are handled a little bit > > different. For example I never planned to internationalize MSEide because > > it complicates things, is a boring task and I did not see a benefit. Now > > a Russian speaking user convinced me, that MSEide can be used in Russian > > schools only, if translated to Russian. I liked the idea to use our loved > > And what had happened if you didn't like the idea? > It depends if I see that someone actually works for the Free Pascal community. If it does not impair the quality of MSEide+MSEgui I help independent whether I like the idea or not. Martin ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
Am 22.12.2012 11:23, schrieb Martin Schreiber: > I propose to extend and render more precisely the mission goals of FPC and to > concentrate the power on the defined goals. > And you think people will work on this defined goals instead of maybe completely other projects? Or just fork FPC? > > In 1999? There was no other useful gui and ide for Free Pascal IIRC. That's true but FPC was also far behind at this time. > I must say, in MSEide+MSEgui project the things are handled a little bit > different. For example I never planned to internationalize MSEide because it > complicates things, is a boring task and I did not see a benefit. Now a > Russian speaking user convinced me, that MSEide can be used in Russian > schools only, if translated to Russian. I liked the idea to use our loved And what had happened if you didn't like the idea? ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
Am 22.12.2012 14:01, schrieb Graeme Geldenhuys: > On 21/12/12 17:16, Florian Klämpfl wrote: >> >> The mission goal of FPC is: develop an open source pascal compiler >> written in pascal in a community effort. > > You forgot the last bit "and be Delphi compatible!" IMO this is actually a consequence of the community effort. Most people are simply interested in this and spent time in it. The community effort means also that one tries not to break other people's work that's why we try to keep backward compatibility as much as possible. > > >> Maybe people should indeed first work on the compiler instead of >> developing another gui and ide. > > A compiler on its own is a pretty useless item. It needs advanced GUI > frameworks, IDE's and other large apps to fully test the compiler and > drive its features. ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
In our previous episode, Graeme Geldenhuys said: > > Cutting out a whole lot of crap: as somebody very much on the periphery > > of the project, I'm disappointed to see sentiments of this tenor being > > aired in public. > > Mark, much of what happens with the FPC project seems to be done in > secrecy, or a private "core only" mailing list. So it takes message > threads like this to actually find out (for the rest of us) what is > going on. > > It's an open-source project (not commercial), so I would have thought > open discussions should be a given. I think you have a wrong idea on what the core list contains. For 90% it is technical internal discussion of the compiler devels, and of the rest a lot is about new platforms/targets. I don't think direction on unicode (or even general) came up since the last unicode discussions on fpc-devel/pascal. ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
On Sat, 22 Dec 2012, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote: On 21/12/12 16:46, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote: Cutting out a whole lot of crap: as somebody very much on the periphery of the project, I'm disappointed to see sentiments of this tenor being aired in public. Mark, much of what happens with the FPC project seems to be done in secrecy, or a private "core only" mailing list. So it takes message threads like this to actually find out (for the rest of us) what is going on. It's an open-source project (not commercial), so I would have thought open discussions should be a given. They most definitely are. But sometimes you need to discuss with knowledgeable people, without other people interfering. Search the list archives: The string type has been discussed many times on the mailing lists. We have heard and listened to the wildest ideas. Nothing wrong with wild ideas, who knows, maybe there is somewhere this brilliant gem amidst of all the rough... But in the end, it is us that will do the work. So then we have some focused conversations about merits and drawbacks in a private list, with some implementation details maybe, but definitely without the noise of the public mailing list. Otherwise we'd never reach a conclusion, let alone an implementation. Which is what people are waiting for, after all. So if you don't mind, we'll close the thread, otherwise we'll never start on an implementation. Michael. ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
On 21/12/12 17:16, Florian Klämpfl wrote: > > The mission goal of FPC is: develop an open source pascal compiler > written in pascal in a community effort. You forgot the last bit "and be Delphi compatible!" > Maybe people should indeed first work on the compiler instead of > developing another gui and ide. A compiler on its own is a pretty useless item. It needs advanced GUI frameworks, IDE's and other large apps to fully test the compiler and drive its features. Regards, - Graeme - ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
On 21/12/12 16:46, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote: > > Cutting out a whole lot of crap: as somebody very much on the periphery > of the project, I'm disappointed to see sentiments of this tenor being > aired in public. Mark, much of what happens with the FPC project seems to be done in secrecy, or a private "core only" mailing list. So it takes message threads like this to actually find out (for the rest of us) what is going on. It's an open-source project (not commercial), so I would have thought open discussions should be a given. Regards, - Graeme - ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
On 22/12/12 10:34, Martin Schreiber wrote: >> > Please note that the message has not been posted to the list by me. My apologies Martin. I should have taken your questions and rephrased them in a list form. To save time, I simply obfuscated the names - probably not the best idea. The names where not the important bit anyway - the listed items and their status in the FPC project was. Regards, - Graeme - ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
On 2012-12-22 11:48, Michael Van Canneyt wrote: On Sat, 22 Dec 2012, ListMember wrote: On 2012-12-22 00:27, Sven Barth wrote: Am 21.12.2012 22:20 schrieb "ListMember" : > > Can you (or someone else, of course) think of a better search string to locate it? Go to View Issues, click on the + before the search bix, click in the appearing entries in the top left for "reporter" and select the user "Inoussa OUEDRAOGO" in the list (strangely the user exists twice, I used the first one) and click on Apply Filter. The second entry should be the correct one (you should be able to judge this from the issue's description). Thank you for that detailed navigation; I got it now. [ http://mantis.freepascal.org/view.php?id=22909 ] Does anyone know if the license issue has been discussed in any public maillist/wiki etc. Reason I am asking is this: Having read (now and several times in the past) unicode.org's license [ http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html#Exhibit1 ] I simply cannot see what it is that is so (or, rather, at all) restrictive. It would require every FPC made program to include the unicode license. By itself maybe not a problem, but this contrasts with the fact that for years, you could make an FPC program without any additional licenses, if you didn't use any third-party libraries. Inclusion in the RTL would make this an obligation for every FPC program. However, last status/opinion is that this is only so if you were to copy the files verbatim. If the data contained in the files is somehow recoded, then it would probably not apply. We didn't get any answers to our inquiries. But we found that Delphi also uses these files, and they put forward the above argument on the Delphi forums when Paul Ishenin inquired. It boils down to: Only the form is copyrighted, not the actual data. We hope they are right, otherwise every Delphi program as of Delphi 2009 is in violation of the unicode license :-) Note that I am not a lawyer, the above are therefor not rigorous legal truths. I am not a lawyer either, but I did notice that they were quite pedantic (or, a better word might be meticulous) with their wording: In the license text they state that "Data Files *or* Software" must contain their license text. Unicode.org guys are as much coders as linguists, so I believe they have used '*/or/*' (as opposed to '/*and*/' or '/*and/or*/') for a reason. So, as an addition to what you have said, my take is that including their copyright in the data alone will suffice --programs/software need not have to bear the same text. [Plus, of course, there should be a clear statement that it is 'modified'. And, the documentation should bear license text. Wiki should do.] ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
On Sat, 22 Dec 2012, Martin Schreiber wrote: I cannot tell you neither any other developer what they have to develop. We could close down all write accesses to fpc svn till the features you need are developed but I fear you won't get them either this way. People would just fork fpc or fpc would die. So what do you propose? I propose to extend and render more precisely the mission goals of FPC and to concentrate the power on the defined goals. That would mean telling people what to do: not to do what they want, but what is needed for the goals of FPC. That said, the mission goals are quite known: - Free, cross-platform Object Pascal compiler. - As Delphi compatible as possible. All within the restrictions of available manpower. Or is FPC simply a playground for the FPC-developers? Then that should be communicated too and I probably was wrong to invest so much time into the development of MSEide+MSEgui. If nobody is interested in features you need, bad luck for you, you have three possibilities: develop them yourself, pay somebody to develop them or use another compiler. Thanks for the message. I must say, in MSEide+MSEgui project the things are handled a little bit different. For example I never planned to internationalize MSEide because it complicates things, is a boring task and I did not see a benefit. Now a Russian speaking user convinced me, that MSEide can be used in Russian schools only, if translated to Russian. I liked the idea to use our loved Free Pascal in schools, so I took the boring task and moved the string constants to tstringcontainer so it can be translated. You say it yourself: 'I liked the idea'. This is not so different from what we do: The bugtracker is filled with evidence of this. Once more, the main restriction is lack of time. Not lack of direction. If it was easy it would have been done already. Michael. ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
On Friday 21 December 2012 17:46:26 Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote: > > It would be good to keep those facts in mind before ranting. > > Cutting out a whole lot of crap: as somebody very much on the periphery > of the project, I'm disappointed to see sentiments of this tenor being > aired in public. > > First, in traditional debate it's not considered necessary to be quite > so explicit naming names: anybody who follows the project would probably > understand "certain persons are difficult to get on with because they > have their own agenda" entirely adequately. > Please note that the message has not been posted to the list by me. Additionally many members of the Free Pascal community, including me, don't know English language so writing explicit statements is unavoidable. [...] > Apart from that, happy Midwinter Solstice everyone. Yup. :-) Martin ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
On Friday 21 December 2012 18:16:06 Florian Klämpfl wrote: > Am 21.12.2012 09:23, schrieb Martin Schreiber: > > On Tuesday 18 December 2012 19:07:47 Florian Klämpfl wrote: > >> Am 17.12.2012 10:36, schrieb Graeme Geldenhuys: > >>> Hi, > >>> > >>> Any FPC developer willing to comment on the status of some of these > >>> issues (that have been years overdue)? > >> > >> It narrows basically down to the fact that fpc lacks developers and > >> contributors, or do I miss something? > > > > Don't you think after more than a year of decision-making about Unicode > > it is necessary for a serious compiler to actually make and communicate a > > decision? > > See mail from Michael. > Thanks. > > Don't you think for a serious compiler there should be communicated > > design goals > > The mission goal of FPC is: develop an open source pascal compiler > written in pascal in a community effort. > Thanks. > > and the missing pieces and necessary boring improvements should be done > > before adding sexy new things? > > Maybe people should indeed first work on the compiler instead of > developing another gui and ide. In 1999? There was no other useful gui and ide for Free Pascal IIRC. > I cannot tell you neither any other > developer what they have to develop. We could close down all write > accesses to fpc svn till the features you need are developed but I fear > you won't get them either this way. People would just fork fpc or fpc > would die. So what do you propose? > I propose to extend and render more precisely the mission goals of FPC and to concentrate the power on the defined goals. > > Or is FPC simply a playground for the FPC-developers? > > Then that should be > > communicated too and I probably was wrong to invest so much time into the > > development of MSEide+MSEgui. > > If nobody is interested in features you need, bad luck for you, you have > three possibilities: develop them yourself, pay somebody to develop them > or use another compiler. Thanks for the message. I must say, in MSEide+MSEgui project the things are handled a little bit different. For example I never planned to internationalize MSEide because it complicates things, is a boring task and I did not see a benefit. Now a Russian speaking user convinced me, that MSEide can be used in Russian schools only, if translated to Russian. I liked the idea to use our loved Free Pascal in schools, so I took the boring task and moved the string constants to tstringcontainer so it can be translated. Remember, FPC does not support Unicode resource strings up to now. ;-) Martin ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] Forwarded message about FPC status
On Sat, 22 Dec 2012, ListMember wrote: On 2012-12-22 00:27, Sven Barth wrote: Am 21.12.2012 22:20 schrieb "ListMember" : > > Can you (or someone else, of course) think of a better search string to locate it? Go to View Issues, click on the + before the search bix, click in the appearing entries in the top left for "reporter" and select the user "Inoussa OUEDRAOGO" in the list (strangely the user exists twice, I used the first one) and click on Apply Filter. The second entry should be the correct one (you should be able to judge this from the issue's description). Thank you for that detailed navigation; I got it now. [ http://mantis.freepascal.org/view.php?id=22909 ] Does anyone know if the license issue has been discussed in any public maillist/wiki etc. Reason I am asking is this: Having read (now and several times in the past) unicode.org's license [ http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html#Exhibit1 ] I simply cannot see what it is that is so (or, rather, at all) restrictive. It would require every FPC made program to include the unicode license. By itself maybe not a problem, but this contrasts with the fact that for years, you could make an FPC program without any additional licenses, if you didn't use any third-party libraries. Inclusion in the RTL would make this an obligation for every FPC program. However, last status/opinion is that this is only so if you were to copy the files verbatim. If the data contained in the files is somehow recoded, then it would probably not apply. We didn't get any answers to our inquiries. But we found that Delphi also uses these files, and they put forward the above argument on the Delphi forums when Paul Ishenin inquired. It boils down to: Only the form is copyrighted, not the actual data. We hope they are right, otherwise every Delphi program as of Delphi 2009 is in violation of the unicode license :-) Note that I am not a lawyer, the above are therefor not rigorous legal truths. Michael. ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
