April 29, 2006
Walter Bright wrote:
> For example, Gabe believes there is something wrong with the licensing for D, something that the GPL or LGPL would fix. I don't understand this, as the front end is GPL, gdc is fully GPL, and Phobos is either public domain or a far less restrictive license than even LGPL. I saw a similar comment on Digg. So something is giving the impression that D has a restrictive license.
> 

I think part of this is the fact that GDC usually lags so far behind DMD.  This gives the impression that D has DMD as its proprietary reference compiler, and GDC as a half-assed attempt at a FOSS one. Perhaps I'm coming off a bit harsh.

Anyway, this is nobody's fault.  GDC is complicated and difficult to maintain.  Walter has other priorities (and that's good, since if he had to deal with GDC, D would never evolve ;) ), and David (the original porter) has been somewhat out of contact.  That turned it into sort of a political game - nobody wanted to circumvent David, since he's hopefully still maintaining GDC, just busy.

All I have to say to you, Walter, is: Don't worry about what people think of the licensing.  I'm an FOSS advocate, maybe even a zealot, but I love D.  For about 12 hours (the people on IRC can attest to this :P) I thought it was unfortunate that the FOSS support was so bad ... until I realized that it was nobody's fault, and you've been trying your best to keep it healthy without ending up selling all your time to it.  Then I made some hacks to GDC, now I have it running against 0.156, and DStress is showing some positive results.  With a few more debugging sessions, it may be relatively clean.  All that was needed was for somebody to take the initiative and not be afraid of offending somebody (sorry David ;) )

I'm new to the game, so if anything I've said is inaccurate, I apologize.

 - Gregor Richards
April 29, 2006
In article <e2uvsh$22kt$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Walter Bright says...
>
>Kyle Furlong wrote:
>> I think we can reasonably say... TROLL ALERT. Everyone, for Bob's sake, just go to www.dsource.org, pick a project or start your own, and get to work.

I haven't really overlooked dsource.org.  In fact I've been going over it quite a bit.  I really like what dsource is trying to accomplish, and I'm not trying to overshadow them or detract from what they are doing.  Instead, I want to put a spotlight on a problem in a way that the relatively loose collection of libraries on dsource simply doesn't address -- namely, bringing many people together around one project -- a project who's sole focus is usability.

Frankly, I think you're all pretty fantastic for working so hard on D -- it's a labor of love for many of you and you should feel exceptionally proud.  You are all competent professionals that love to explore new avenues and work towards making D a better language.

However, for everyone else out there -- everyone who isn't a born programmer -- I feel that what D really needs is an entry-level configuration for would-be D hackers: something that 'just works'.  Look at Java and Mono -- these languages/libraries aren't just succeeding because they have great communities or prolific resources -- they're succeeding because they package together good tools, inteligent ideas, huge libraries, and wonderful documentation into one place.  And they live by setting project goals!  Everybody's contributions are being fed back into one location, one repository, one central nexus of talent and development.  In this sense, one might consider dsource a wonderful kaliedescope of talent and libraries, but what is probalby needed is a laser: a focus and direction to the whole project with mesurable goals and specific timelines.  (You can see from the current development of the gcd, things seem to be somewhat in the air in terms of maintaining contact and getting people organized.)

As for the liscensing issue, well, I came to the LGPL and GPL after looking through some of the dsource libraries and wondering at some of the liscenses (Ares, I discovered after questioning, should be under a kind of BSD liscense). I don't want there to be any question about the status of the gnu-d.org library. I really want people to feel that they can take what gets put up and do whatever they want with it, as long as they realize that the code isn't a personal right but a public ownership best served by having everyone involved.  Besides, it isn't necessarily handed down from on high that everything has to be under the LGPL (though the core library probably should be), as the community may decide that the MIT or BSD liscense will be sufficient in certain circumstances.  But, there again is part of my point: put a laser beam focus on what needs to be done and do that one thing well -- as a community.

And, just as an aside, I would like to say that just as many people here are disturbed by the power of the GPL, there are many, many other people in the world who hack every day under the ideal of free software.  It's these dedicated individuals that I would like gnu-d.org to appeal to, as well.  The lack of a direct mission statement on the D website and a lack of explicit liscensing for every D component, I feel, is currently inhibiting some people who might otherwise join up.  (It might be unfair, but some people figure if they have to ask about what liscense it's under, they probably don't even want to know.)

To summarize: timelines, community, docuemntation, and packaging.  I think these should be some of the primary goals of gnu-d.org

If you want to join, great!  I know that I would love to have the company.  If not, then no hard feelings -- you're still doing great work for D, and that's what's really important!

Salud,
Gabe


April 29, 2006
Gabe McArthur wrote:
> I haven't really overlooked dsource.org.  In fact I've been going over it quite
> a bit.  I really like what dsource is trying to accomplish, and I'm not trying
> to overshadow them or detract from what they are doing.  

What exactly is stopping anyone, including you, from doing what you describe at dsource?


> Instead, I want to put
> a spotlight on a problem in a way that the relatively loose collection of
> libraries on dsource simply doesn't address -- namely, bringing many people
> together around one project -- a project who's sole focus is usability.


I see. And this requires splitting away from dsource.org, and must be
handled under the banner of GNU. O.k.a.y. Doesn't that sound like a shallow sales-pitch to you? Like a book-purchase link?
April 29, 2006
Gregor Richards wrote:
> 
> I think part of this is the fact that GDC usually lags so far behind DMD.  This gives the impression that D has DMD as its proprietary reference compiler, and GDC as a half-assed attempt at a FOSS one. Perhaps I'm coming off a bit harsh.

That's always been my impression ..

-Hasan
April 29, 2006
kris wrote:
> Gabe McArthur wrote:
> 
>> I haven't really overlooked dsource.org.  In fact I've been going over it quite
>> a bit.  I really like what dsource is trying to accomplish, and I'm not trying
>> to overshadow them or detract from what they are doing.  
> 
> 
> What exactly is stopping anyone, including you, from doing what you describe at dsource?
> 
> 
>> Instead, I want to put
>> a spotlight on a problem in a way that the relatively loose collection of
>> libraries on dsource simply doesn't address -- namely, bringing many people
>> together around one project -- a project who's sole focus is usability.
> 
> 
> 
> I see. And this requires splitting away from dsource.org, and must be
> handled under the banner of GNU. O.k.a.y. Doesn't that sound like a shallow sales-pitch to you? Like a book-purchase link?


D Source is *NOT* the official or the one and only place for D projects.

IMHO, having /more/ websites dedicated to the D programming language is for the better.
April 29, 2006
Gregor Richards wrote:
> Anyway, this is nobody's fault.  GDC is complicated and difficult to maintain.  Walter has other priorities (and that's good, since if he had to deal with GDC, D would never evolve ;) ), and David (the original porter) has been somewhat out of contact.  That turned it into sort of a political game - nobody wanted to circumvent David, since he's hopefully still maintaining GDC, just busy.

BTW, just so everyone knows, I cannot maintain GDC. The reason is I wish to avoid 'taint' by looking at other compiler sources.
April 29, 2006
Hasan Aljudy wrote:
> D Source is *NOT* the official or the one and only place for D projects.
> 
> IMHO, having /more/ websites dedicated to the D programming language is for the better.

I can see a point to a site that is a centralized database for D code that is GPL'd or has a license compatible with the GPL. It could even be just links to other sites, like particular projects under dsource. It needn't be duplicative or divisive, but could be more of a cross reference for those who want to restrict themselves to using only GPL.
April 29, 2006
Hasan Aljudy wrote:
> kris wrote:
> 
>> Gabe McArthur wrote:
>>
>>> I haven't really overlooked dsource.org.  In fact I've been going over it quite
>>> a bit.  I really like what dsource is trying to accomplish, and I'm not trying
>>> to overshadow them or detract from what they are doing.  
>>
>>
>>
>> What exactly is stopping anyone, including you, from doing what you describe at dsource?
>>
>>
>>> Instead, I want to put
>>> a spotlight on a problem in a way that the relatively loose collection of
>>> libraries on dsource simply doesn't address -- namely, bringing many people
>>> together around one project -- a project who's sole focus is usability.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I see. And this requires splitting away from dsource.org, and must be
>> handled under the banner of GNU. O.k.a.y. Doesn't that sound like a shallow sales-pitch to you? Like a book-purchase link?
> 
> 
> 
> D Source is *NOT* the official or the one and only place for D projects.
> 
> IMHO, having /more/ websites dedicated to the D programming language is for the better.


That's right. But that's a different aspect altogether -- the original question remains: why does building a set of cohesive libraries require a new host/site? Why can't that be done on dsource.org ?
April 29, 2006
Gabe McArthur wrote:

> So, here it is!  I've created the basic (and quite ugly) site for the new
> gnu-d.org site.  I hope to have a lot of people participating in this new
> movement, so I'll be creating Wikis, Trac sites for GNU-D projects (including
> the GDC, I think), SVN annonymous access for checkouts, customizable project
> homepages, etc.  As people become involved, of course, they will be given
> check-in/versioning rights to repositories and management over their own project
> sites.  I will be putting up a wiki in the next couple of days outlining what I
> feel our first steps should be.  For instance, as to the issue of liscenses, I
> think it best to use the LGPL for the majority of our libraries and the GPL for
> our main projects (gdc, a build mechanism, an IDE).

Like many others on these newsgroups, I'm also a little confused...

We've talked about gettting a new home page for GDC, since the current
one needs a face lift and more diskspace/bandwidth to host the binaries.
It would also be a good thing to gather all the different builds of GDC under a common "umbrella" GDC site, so that it would be easier to find.

I have also been working on extending the "toolchain" for GDC, with both the GNU Debugger (gdb) and GNU Make (3.80) and what else that you need.
These are all GPL or LGPL license, so they match the "GNU" banner well.
Along with some of D documentation written for Wiki4D, all FDL licensed.

But this project/site (gnu-d.org) seems to be about something different?
It looks like "yet another" repository, in addition to the ones that we already have: Dsource and SourceForge. And I don't think we need that,
at least not without a totally different spin or concept attached to it.

My work includes working with an existing IDE (Code::Blocks) and with an existing GUI (wxWidgets), instead of starting yet another new project...
But those two already have sites (codeblocks.org and wxwidgets.org), and development on the D versions is already being hosted on SourceForge ?


However, gnu-d.org would work *great* as the new GNU D Compiler site...

Then it could hold the tools and documentation for compiler toolchain, and Dsource could continue to do what it is good at: hosting projects.
I was thinking something like this site: http://www.gnu-pascal.org/

We've already discussed packaging on the other newsgroups (d.D / D.gnu),
but it includes the packaging for Linux, Cygwin (Win) and Darwin (Mac).
Documentation would be how to set up the compiler and getting started ?

IMHO: I think this would much be more useful than another "committee".

--anders
April 29, 2006
Hasan Aljudy wrote:

> I'm not a big fan of GNU, and I don't think that GNU-izing D is for the best interest of the language.

You are not using GCC then ? :-O

> Let's be realistic: For D to succeed, it has to be used for commercial projects. The big guys in the market must embrace it.

But isn't DMD already doing this ?

--anders