[nant-dev] Licensing
Hello all, after browsing the developer list's archive for some discussions about licensing, I felt like contributing one or two thoughts. I hope nobody minds my entering the discussion, although I just started using nant, with no code contributions so far. 1) I feel that one major point was not mentioned in the licensing thread from last month: the GPL has two two major goals. one is obviously to make sure that free software stays free. the other one however seems to be to give the free software community an advantage over commercially licensed software. that of course is only possible by putting things in the way of anyone who wants to charge for their software. the following quote is from a discussion about whether to use GPL or LGPL: http://www.fsf.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html Proprietary software developers have the advantage of money; free software developers need to make advantages for each other. Using the ordinary GPL for a library gives free software developers an advantage over proprietary developers: a library that they can use, while proprietary developers cannot use it. without reading the fine print, this statement alone says to me: don't use the GPL if you don't share that intention. (or if you want your product to be an alternative to comercially available stuff, that's what the lesser GPL seems to be about.) it also says to me as a potential NAnt user: if you want to charge for your software *and* use NAnt, this product's license goes out of its way to make this harder. 2) another perspective I'd like to add: I understand the problem with producing tools for Nant (GUI designers etc.) and intergrating it woth other products (IDEs). we're not into tool-building, but I may still face the following problem: say I develop a project that has little to do with Nant, but I'd like to distribute Nant to use its functionality not only for building, but for installing too. (an idea I grabbed from the SDC sample on gotdotnet: http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/UserSamples/Details.aspx?SampleGuid=2 CB20E79-D706-4706-9EA0-26188257EE7D ) NAnt may one day choose to add specific support for integrating .build file sections in MSI install scripts. However, AFAIU the GPL could be a major obstacle in using this stuff. (and switching licenses won't getting any easier, should you choose to do this at a later point.) I have no problem contributing whatever enhancements I might come up with, be it modificatiosn or new tasks. neither would my company. it makes my life easier, and it's just fair. however, if I get the feeling that the GPL could 'infect' my product just because it *uses* Nant (as opposed to extend), I'd have to drop it like a hot stone. 3) msbuild. it's going to take its time, but one day it will compete with Nant (and I believe there will be a need for NAnt even if msbuild is available). I imagine that the NAnt developers will be trying to make sure both are as compatible as possible - in both build files and custom tasks. choosing a too strict license could lead to a situation where custom tasks that could be available for NAnt will not. being msbuild compatible does not require source-disclosure, while being NAnt compatible would. We all know where the big market is going to be, so dropping NAnt support would not be a hard decision for some companies. without the licensing problems, adding it could be an even easier decision. 4) if some or all of my concerns should be invalid, it just goes two show how GPL fear works against Nant adoption. maybe some clear words on the project homepage from someone who really understands open source licensing could help then. I hope I'm not too negative on the GPL, and I'm no licensing expert either. just my two cents. Regards, Stefan --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ ___ nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
RE: [nant-dev] Editing .build files w/syntax hilighting in VS.NET
David, You are correct, the nantschema task is under construction, and incomplete. I am working on getting it back into shape to support collections and nested elements. It will get done after I'm finished with the new userdoc stuff (which is really close). I'm more than happy to hear about any additions to the nant.xsd file that you think would help. The first one on my list is to get it defining the types correctly so it is accurate :) Some of the features that I would like to add are kind of restrictive with the expand properties features that we have. It would be nice to allow mappings of .net enums to xsd but that would restrict the use of expanded properties, since the xsd would choke on any invalid values for attributes that of type enum. There are ways around this although it requires a little xml schema magic. :) I'll post an update to all this when the xsd file is good to go again! quote who=David Reed You can also set this by right-clicking on a .build file in a project (add one to a project temporarily if you need to) and choosing Open With... Choose HTML/XML Editor and click Set as Default. File associations are cool, but the really neat trick is to get tag-completion for NAnt scripts in VS.NET! I'm much too lazy to look up syntax every time I need it. (Thank you, Bill, for ruining my short-term and short-term memories.) Copy a NAnt.xsd file that has the task schema in it into the following path (for VS.NET 2003): C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Common7\Packages\schemas\xml\ And then automagically any file with the correct schema definition at the top of the file will support tag completion in the VS.NET XML editor. (I prefer to give all my build files .build.xml extensions anyway.) ?xml version=1.0? project name=eRealty.Desktop.ContractManager default=build xmlns=http://nant.sourceforge.net/; [Which reminds me... The standard NAnt schema is incomplete, folks. My tag completion, particularly for nested elements, often fails me and I have to actually read the help file. Very upsetting. Heh.] There are other handy type-definition things that could be done to enhance the NAnt.xsd and provide more and better Intelisense... but I'm kind of swamped at the moment or I'd've already done it. --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ ___ nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
Re: [nant-dev] documentation
more documentation = good... holes in docuementation = !good I like good. Anyone want to volunteer? ;) quote who=Martin Aliger Hi all, I notice that our current docs do not say anything about nant.exe.config. I this there should be section about it discussing frameworks settings, possibility to add global properties, and logger. What do you think? [sorry I do not write it right now...] Martin --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ ___ nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
RE: [nant-dev] touch task w/non-existant files
+1 for that idea. -Original Message- From: Matthew Mastracci [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 5:15 PM To: Nant-Developers (E-mail) Subject: [nant-dev] touch task w/non-existant files Should the touch task create a non-existant file? The documentation says that it corresponds to the unix touch command, but not in this respect. :) --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ ___ nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ ___ nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
RE: [nant-dev] Criteria for next release
John, Thanks for taking up this task...any further progress on releasing the first beta or release candidate? My vote would be for one distribution package with the binaries for each .NET framework in separate directories. I don't think that we should include the documentation or source in the distribution package. We should instead, direct users to the website for documentation. I would include a readme doc that explains the basics of getting things setup (for the newbie), but again, refer to a task reference on the web. From my perspective, if I want the source, I will just get it from SF CVS. Jason -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gert Driesen Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003 4:04 AM To: John C Barstow; Nant-Dev Subject: Re: [nant-dev] Criteria for next release - Original Message - From: John C Barstow [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Nant-Dev [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003 5:45 AM Subject: [nant-dev] Criteria for next release Now that I have access to an account that can post successfully to the list, I think we should decide on the criteria for the next release. I propose the following: We ship the next release as soon as possible. There have been a lot of bugfixes since 0.8.3. I agree we should release a new version as soon as possible ... But we should definitely have a small beta-cycle ... According to the TODO list, we have not yet finished the 0.8.x items. In that case, we would want the new release to be numbered 0.8.4 instead of 0.9.0 Sure, 0.8.4 it is ... We adopt the NDoc method of determining which runtime to build against. Basically, the NDoc scripts use the available task to determine which runtimes and SDKs are installed and builds against those. glad you like the NDoc build files: -) But to be honest the Ndoc build is actually more simple as it does not involve document generation (which is pretty strange for such a tool) and no automatic deployment to a website and stuff ... We could ofcourse automate all this for NAnt, but then we have to make some decisions reagarding packaging and deployment. eg. will we have one distribution package including the binaries for all supported frameworks/platforms and separate docs for each framework/platform ? The docs for which framework will be deployed to the website ? if we have separate packages for each support framework/platform, then should all of these packages include binaries, docs and sources ? Should we have binary-only distribution packages ? ... This would cut down on the number of issues people have when building from source. We should still use the -k parameter to build against specific targets. Do we have any tasks under active development we think a release should wait on? Most existing tasks seem to be pretty stable at this point. The doc generation could probable do with some polishing ... We should perhaps create a small list of things to do for the 0.8.4 release in the to-do list document. Once everyone's made decisions about the above, I'm prepared to roll the next release. I will start work on the change log immediately. Great, thanks for taking this task upon yourself ... Gert --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ ___ nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ ___ nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
Re[2]: [nant-dev] Criteria for next release
Hello Jason, MJ My vote would be for one distribution package with the binaries for each MJ .NET framework in separate directories. I don't think that we should MJ include the documentation or source in the distribution package. We MJ should instead, direct users to the website for documentation. I would MJ include a readme doc that explains the basics of getting things setup MJ (for the newbie), but again, refer to a task reference on the web. MJ From my perspective, if I want the source, I will just get it from SF MJ CVS. IMO it is a really bad idea not to include the source in the distribution. It is not always possible to get the sources from SF CVS, because of having internet access through the firewall. Moreover, it is a bit harder to get the sources of stable release than the current sources (because you have to know the CVS tag of the last stable release) (probably, I'm wrong, but my experience of using CVS tells me that this is a possible problem). Do you think that documentation should be available for download as a single file (zip?) (in case, someone needs to read it offline)? -- Best regards, Ivanmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ ___ nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
RE: [nant-dev] Criteria for next release
That is a negative Jason. We will always distribute source with our binaries. We will also always include help/documentation. We will also not distribute multiple, and redundant, binaries. There is no reason to distribute 1.0 and 1.1 compiled versions of nant. Our goal is to support all .net platforms and frameworks. Right now NAnt has support for the ms .net framework 1.0 and 1.1, as well as limited support for mono (as mono progresses our available features are also growing). Our goal is to provide binaries that meet the minimum framework requirements. In the future I expect our compiled binaries will run on mono out of the dist directly, just like they do on the ms .net frameworks. quote who=Morris, Jason John, Thanks for taking up this task...any further progress on releasing the first beta or release candidate? My vote would be for one distribution package with the binaries for each .NET framework in separate directories. I don't think that we should include the documentation or source in the distribution package. We should instead, direct users to the website for documentation. I would include a readme doc that explains the basics of getting things setup (for the newbie), but again, refer to a task reference on the web. From my perspective, if I want the source, I will just get it from SF CVS. --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ ___ nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
[nant-dev] NAnt [FileSetAttribute] soon to be removed.
The [FileSet] attribute used to describe a BuildElement (nested xml element in a task or datatype) is going to be removed soon. It is a relic of the days before the generic BuildElement and provide no extra information at this point. If you are developing tasks please replace any [FileSet(name)] with a [BuildElement(name)]. Here is an example if you want to see how it was done in the NAnt task (once anon cvs gets updated.): http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/nant/nant/src/NAnt.Core/Tasks/CopyTask.cs?r1=1.29r2=1.30 --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ ___ nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
RE: [nant-dev] Criteria for next release
Ok...just seemed to be some questions on what to include in the distribution package. Looks like Scott is firm on having source (and others are too) and one set of binaries for the package. No worries...just looking forward to the .8.4.0 release. Jason -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Scott Hernandez Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 10:21 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [nant-dev] Criteria for next release That is a negative Jason. We will always distribute source with our binaries. We will also always include help/documentation. We will also not distribute multiple, and redundant, binaries. There is no reason to distribute 1.0 and 1.1 compiled versions of nant. Our goal is to support all .net platforms and frameworks. Right now NAnt has support for the ms .net framework 1.0 and 1.1, as well as limited support for mono (as mono progresses our available features are also growing). Our goal is to provide binaries that meet the minimum framework requirements. In the future I expect our compiled binaries will run on mono out of the dist directly, just like they do on the ms .net frameworks. quote who=Morris, Jason John, Thanks for taking up this task...any further progress on releasing the first beta or release candidate? My vote would be for one distribution package with the binaries for each .NET framework in separate directories. I don't think that we should include the documentation or source in the distribution package. We should instead, direct users to the website for documentation. I would include a readme doc that explains the basics of getting things setup (for the newbie), but again, refer to a task reference on the web. From my perspective, if I want the source, I will just get it from SF CVS. --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ ___ nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ ___ nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
[nant-dev] Editing .build files w/syntax hilighting in VS.NET
I'm not sure if this was posted to these lists before, but this registry
modification with allow you to edit .build file with nice XML syntax
hiliting in VS.NET 2003.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\Editors\{8281C572-2171-45AA-A642-7D8BC1662F1C}\Extensions]
build=dword:0027
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\Editors\{C76D83F8-A489-11D0-8195-00A0C91BBEE3}\Extensions]
build=dword:0028
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\Languages\File
Extensions\.build]
@={58E975A0-F8FE-11D2-A6AE-00104BCC7269}
unused=HTML
---
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Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it
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YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/
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RE: [nant-dev] Editing .build files w/syntax hilighting in VS.NET
You can also set this by right-clicking on a .build file in a project
(add one to a project temporarily if you need to) and choosing Open
With... Choose HTML/XML Editor and click Set as Default.
-Original Message-
From: Matthew Mastracci [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 11:05 AM
To: Nant-Developers (E-mail); [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [nant-dev] Editing .build files w/syntax hilighting in VS.NET
I'm not sure if this was posted to these lists before, but this registry
modification with allow you to edit .build file with nice XML syntax
hiliting in VS.NET 2003.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\Editors\{8281C57
2-2171-45AA-A642-7D8BC1662F1C}\Extensions]
build=dword:0027
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\Editors\{C76D83F
8-A489-11D0-8195-00A0C91BBEE3}\Extensions]
build=dword:0028
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\Languages\File
Extensions\.build]
@={58E975A0-F8FE-11D2-A6AE-00104BCC7269}
unused=HTML
---
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Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it
help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help
YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/
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RE: [nant-dev] Editing .build files w/syntax hilighting in VS.NET
You can also set this by right-clicking on a .build file in a project (add one to a project temporarily if you need to) and choosing Open With... Choose HTML/XML Editor and click Set as Default. File associations are cool, but the really neat trick is to get tag-completion for NAnt scripts in VS.NET! I'm much too lazy to look up syntax every time I need it. (Thank you, Bill, for ruining my short-term and short-term memories.) Copy a NAnt.xsd file that has the task schema in it into the following path (for VS.NET 2003): C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Common7\Packages\schemas\xml\ And then automagically any file with the correct schema definition at the top of the file will support tag completion in the VS.NET XML editor. (I prefer to give all my build files .build.xml extensions anyway.) ?xml version=1.0? project name=eRealty.Desktop.ContractManager default=build xmlns=http://nant.sourceforge.net/; [Which reminds me... The standard NAnt schema is incomplete, folks. My tag completion, particularly for nested elements, often fails me and I have to actually read the help file. Very upsetting. Heh.] There are other handy type-definition things that could be done to enhance the NAnt.xsd and provide more and better Intelisense... but I'm kind of swamped at the moment or I'd've already done it. --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ ___ nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
