gstep-make 2.0 Re: gstep-base Re: [OGo-Developer] OGo InvoiceApplication

[Helge Hess]

On 02.01.2008, at 16:00, Sebastian Reitenbach wrote:
> This is exactly what my opinion is about ogo packages.


Oh common, you just said that you always build from source anyways! ;-)

The far majority of OGo users *is* using packages, and often is not  
experienced in compiling software.
There are platforms which have decent packaging systems (eg Debian/ 
Ubuntu) and its stupid not to use them for initial installation and  
keeping systems up to date.
Anyways, this obviously is additional work ...

> I just have the fear that when we maintain own stuff, I fear that we  
> get
> stuck with one version, and then maybe later in the future, when we  
> want to
> upgrade a whole bunch of versions, then facing same problems as  
> right now.

You are starting to understand why using gstep-base as the primary  
basis is not as cool as it sounds. Its OK if you maintain one or a few  
systems, but its havoc if you provide shrinkwrapped software to  
endusers (with hundreds or thousands separate server installs!).
As a user I cannot install business software which provides no  
appropriate upgrade management!

And again: if you live at the bleeding edge this automatically implies  
that you cannot use system packages.

> Trying to keep up with the new versions when they are released,  
> would make
> updates easier as the differences will not be that much, if at all.


The differences have been *significant* between releases in the past,  
I don't see why that would change in the future. Eg even minor changes  
in the KVC code can affect OGo and SOPE badly.
Check the archives of the gnustep-discuss list, I think I once sent a  
summary to outline that point (highlighting major incompats between  
minor versions).

BTW: I think the GNUstep guys pretty much agree with me on this :-) In  
fact *we* could probably contribute a stable GNUstep release branch.  
It would be our task to manage the stable GNUstep branch (add ABI  
compatible fixes, etc).
Anyways, as posted before _I_ won't invest that time anymore for  
various reasons (ObjC 2.0 being one of them).

> The Novell distris would be the only Linux distributions, where I am
> interested in having packages too.

Si. But this is not just about us. (eg personally I only care about  
Debian, and maybe Ubuntu ...).

Helge

PS: all this is not intended as a blaim on GNUstep! (I think its easy  
to get my comments wrong ;-) Technically its great stuff and  
especially gs-make and gs-base are in very good shape. But the GS  
developers (I know) have widely different requirements wrt deployment,  
and in some respects they use the software in a very different way (eg  
no KVC is the classic).