"Rajiv Bhagwat" <dataflow@vsnl.com> wrote in message news:av49jk$24n6$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Walter, how about modifying the IDE to use 'text' version of .opn file instead of the current binary one?

It's a good idea, but there's a long list of higher priority things.

> 2. If the 'binary compatibility to gcc' is left aside, will the porting be quicker? Why is the binary compatibilty a limiting factor?

To take advantage of all the tons of existing libraries out there. Without binary compatibility, DMC for linux will be its own island.


> 3. If we can live without gcc 'features' under Windows, surely we can
under
> Linux! DMC features are good enough.

Unfortunately, plenty of source code under linux uses those features.

>There is one problem with Cygwin - it's covered by the GPL.

Christof you're right.  I do not advocate that DMC pay much attention to Cygwin for the simple reason that DMC already supports Windows.  What I advocate is a straightforward native Linux port (and Mac, to the extent that it can be easily covered by a Linux port, though it is a different chip).

If something like Cygwin were desired, the route to take would be Mingw.  It calls native Windows APIs and doesn't use the Cygwin DLL.

Mark

>The D compiler is open source. But it's a lot less embarassing than the DMC source, which shows the effects of successive waves of rewrites in different styles by myself :-(

Let the open source world help you whip it into shape then.  This type of issue is the big problem with the OpenWatcom effort.  They are forever fiddling with the unreleased portions hoping to sanitize them of legal, stylistic, or technical problems.  I wish they would just do the legal stuff and then launch the dang thing.

Mark

"Mark Evans" <Mark_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:av4maj$2b6p$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Besides that would give Walter more time to work on his D project.

Trying to manage an open source project would very possibly result in less time for me <g>. And besides, management is not one of my core competencies :-(

On Fri, 3 Jan 2003 18:55:15 +0000 (UTC), Mark Evans wrote:
> Christof Mee wrote:
>>Why should it be different for DMC?
> 
> OpenWatcom has been on my radar screen for years now.  One reason I use DMC is that OpenWatcom has never done a real open source release!  So your premise is flawed in that sense.
> 
> They're entangled in licensing and copyright issues.  They have not released all the source code AFAIK.  You still need the old Watcom commercial stuff --- which is no longer for sale!  What they have released to date are "patches" over top of the legacy Watcom commercial distro.

That's not correct. They have released a "patch" for Watcom 11.0 which contains the complete Watcom 11.0c (except 3rd party files like Microsoft's Platform SDK which you can download from MS).

But they have also released the complete source code to the compiler and all tools (see http://www.openwatcom.org/ftp/openwatcom/ or http://www.openwatcom.org/support/perforce_content.html)


> So the size of the OpenWatcom development team at this point is limited to - people who own original Watcom tools before Watcom stopped selling

AFAIK, the freely available Watcom 11.0c "patch" + Microsoft's Platform SDK is all you need (no previous version of Watcom is required)

> - and are interested in the open source release
> - and have time to devote to the project
> - and have skills to write a C/C++ compiler

and these aren't any different for an Open Source DMC.


bye, Christof

-- 
http://cmeerw.org                                 JID: cmeerw@jabber.at mailto cmeerw at web.de

...and what have you contributed to the Net?

Christof I do not accept at face value your vague assertion about the numbers over at OpenWatcom.  Those are fairly recent (last half year?) developments. And have you asked anyone how many people are involved?  So far it's just an unsupported assertion on your part.

There are counterexamples anyway.  G++ comes to mind.  Why would DMC not attract as many folks as that?  You've given no basis for the factual assertion or hypothetical projections stemming from it.

You and Walter should argue with each other, not me.  One of you says he wants to minimize participation (to the extreme of just himself <g>), while the other claims that an open source launch is justified only by massive numbers.  I'm in a position where I can't win.  If the numbers are too great, open source is bad (Walter); if too small, it's equally bad (Christof).

Walter it's always possible to do a closed-source port with 1-2 other people you consider "manageable."

Or you could simply designate a manager of your choice for an open-source approach.  (Jan maybe.)  That's what most company owners do with their various projects.

Or you could do a two-phased approach, first closed-, then open-source.  During the closed-source phase the emphasis would be on code style cleanup and consistency.

With D going full steam, I don't see a Linux port happening under other auspices.  That to me is very sad.  The personal consequence for my ambitious cross-platform work is that I'll have to standardize on Comeau, G++, or Borland C++.  All of them support both platforms with excellent C++ standards compliance (esp. Comeau).  None of them are as fast or cool as Digital Mars or have anything like this level of personal support.

Thanks for listening. You're both terrific for chasing down the namespace / template / C++ standards business.  Maybe after that end of things is squared away you'll entertain different feelings about an open- or semi-open-source port to Linux.  I appreciate all your hard work very much.

Mark

"Mark Evans" <Mark_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:av59l0$2l38$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> There are counterexamples anyway.  G++ comes to mind.  Why would DMC not
attract
> as many folks as that?  You've given no basis for the factual assertion or hypothetical projections stemming from it.

For one reason, DMC will not be released under GPL, if for no other reason than the complex web of licenses on it now. It took me a year to get all the licenses in order to launch Digital Mars. D, however, is open source & GPL because I took pains to write it all from scratch with that in mind.

> Walter it's always possible to do a closed-source port with 1-2 other
people you
> consider "manageable."

It's been tried, twice now. They both failed likely because of my management skills.

> With D going full steam, I don't see a Linux port happening under other auspices.  That to me is very sad.  The personal consequence for my
ambitious
> cross-platform work is that I'll have to standardize on Comeau, G++, or
Borland
> C++.  All of them support both platforms with excellent C++ standards
compliance
> (esp. Comeau).  None of them are as fast or cool as Digital Mars or have anything like this level of personal support.

I'm not sure why you need to standardize on a compiler for cross-platform work. What issues come up that require it?

"Walter" <walter@digitalmars.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:av4oho$2c9n$1@digitaldaemon.com...

> Trying to manage an open source project would very possibly result in less time for me <g>. And besides, management is not one of my core
competencies
> :-(

First I can see why Walter doesn't want to release DMC as open-source. And it's his decision. Anyway, IMO there is an other way to "solve" this problem that doesn't need an open-source release.

Walter, I'm sure you know some people around here for some time now. Further I think there are quite a lot of good developers hanging around here. Have you every thought to use their offer to help you by just giving the source-code to a small team of poeple? With this you extend on the eye-balls and don't loose anything.

I would think about this step. Very simple to setup and not to much to manage... Robert

Seems a reasonable start. However, it would require lots of management, and I can certainly see why Walter is not keen.

"Robert M. Münch" <robert.muench@robertmuench.de> wrote in message news:av6cf9$bqt$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> "Walter" <walter@digitalmars.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:av4oho$2c9n$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>
> > Trying to manage an open source project would very possibly result in
less
> > time for me <g>. And besides, management is not one of my core
> competencies
> > :-(
>
> First I can see why Walter doesn't want to release DMC as open-source. And it's his decision. Anyway, IMO there is an other way to "solve" this
problem
> that doesn't need an open-source release.
>
> Walter, I'm sure you know some people around here for some time now.
Further
> I think there are quite a lot of good developers hanging around here. Have you every thought to use their offer to help you by just giving the source-code to a small team of poeple? With this you extend on the
eye-balls
> and don't loose anything.
>
> I would think about this step. Very simple to setup and not to much to manage... Robert
>
>

According to my experience you should teach your co-workers before you can
give them some work to do.
Since I think none of us has experience in writing optimizing C/C++
compilers, it would be rather difficult for Walter to share tasks with us.

But on the other side, I really can help in developing/maintaining such things as utilities (sc, smake and so on) and run-time library.

I think we could help Walter in doing such helper things, while he will develop compiler himself. I think he will do this best alone than in a group of co-workers who still have to be taught at least the basic things about writing compilers.

And I don't think that opening the sources will cure the problem. I think only Walter can understand them in reasonable time.

Nic Tiger.

P.S. I really want Linux port of DMC, mainly because of gcc's terrible inline assembler. I use inline assembler a lot and don't want to learn some arbitrary "universal" assembler which gcc suggests instead of well known Intel assembler style. I want to port part of my software to Linux and want to use my favorite compiler - DMC.


"Walter" <walter@digitalmars.com> ÓÏÏÂÝÉÌ/ÓÏÏÂÝÉÌÁ ×  ÎÏ×ÏÓÔÑÈ ÓÌÅÄÕÀÝÅÅ: news:av5bqd$2m6t$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>
> "Mark Evans" <Mark_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:av59l0$2l38$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> > There are counterexamples anyway.  G++ comes to mind.  Why would DMC not
> attract
> > as many folks as that?  You've given no basis for the factual assertion
or
> > hypothetical projections stemming from it.
>
> For one reason, DMC will not be released under GPL, if for no other reason than the complex web of licenses on it now. It took me a year to get all
the
> licenses in order to launch Digital Mars. D, however, is open source & GPL because I took pains to write it all from scratch with that in mind.
>
> > Walter it's always possible to do a closed-source port with 1-2 other
> people you
> > consider "manageable."
>
> It's been tried, twice now. They both failed likely because of my
management
> skills.
>
> > With D going full steam, I don't see a Linux port happening under other auspices.  That to me is very sad.  The personal consequence for my
> ambitious
> > cross-platform work is that I'll have to standardize on Comeau, G++, or
> Borland
> > C++.  All of them support both platforms with excellent C++ standards
> compliance
> > (esp. Comeau).  None of them are as fast or cool as Digital Mars or have anything like this level of personal support.
>
> I'm not sure why you need to standardize on a compiler for cross-platform work. What issues come up that require it?
>
>