Re: [Gimp-developer] Getting contributors via OpenHatch

["Michael Schumacher" <schumaml gmx de>]

> Von: "Elle Stone" <ellestone ninedegreesbelow com>

> On 06/01/2014 03:49 PM, Ofnuts wrote:
>
> > Call me cynical, but someone that needs really more detailed
> > instructions will likely not have the programming background to be a
> > useful Gimp developer. Of course I expect potential Gimp contributors to
> > be somewhat "already-knowledgeable", at least in the basics of Linux
> > application development.  Lines have to be drawn somewhere...
>
> I've shown several people how to build GIMP from git. One person was a c 
> coder who wanted to write and submit a patch. Which he did. Another 
> person is currently working on a patch.

Was there a special part they needed help with?
 
> For these two people the entry barrier of figuring out how to build GIMP 
> from git would have been a waste of time.

I've read the build guide you posted yesterday, and was a bit confused by it. Mostly because it addresses 
issues I've never encountered as such, so I'm not sure how much of it is based on actually experienced 
blocking points (for example, the "running gimp from a prefix by creating a launcher script" part is puzzling 
me - either I'm always running my GIMP 2.9.x the wrong way, or it simply works for me...).


Regarding said build instructions:

- the config.site approach as described in e.g. Martin Nordholt's blog works fine for me
  I've never ever had to remember to set  environment variables again


Getting the dependencies is:

- easy on reasonably recent Linux distros (apt-get build-dep, zypper -d, ...). 
- apparently not much harder for OSX if you use Homebrew and Macports, there are reports of successful builds
- hardest on the Windows platform (although the current mingw installers make this easier)
  - but even the official installers are compiled *for* Windows *on* Linux

We have some build instrcutions for all of these, the problem is review - which probably doesn't happen 
because the people who could review them fully don't need them anymore? :)


Where OpenHatch will provide the most benefit:

- enable user to discover that there is something beyond the icons of the desktop environment, for example a 
command line interface
- enable users to get to the point where building any software or documentation, including babl, gegl, gimp, 
the gimp user manual, plug-ins, ..., becomes a no-brainer
  - i.e. understanding messages like "needs libfoo..." and make it become "ahhh, I'll just get it from my the 
package management"


-- 
Regards,
Michael