Re: gwp.word.processor.0.3.2.released

[Rebecca Ore <rebecca ore op net>]

On Sat, Jan 09, 1999 at 11:55:31PM -0600, Miguel de Icaza wrote:
> 
> Hello Rebecca,
> 
> 
> export ACLOCAL_FLAGS="-I /your-gnome-prefix/share/aclocal/"
> 
> before you run autogen.sh.  

I've tried setting this as part of the command line and I've tried
setting this in /etc/profile, but no go.  Should I be setting this
anywhere else?

> 
> Please note that autogen.sh is intended to be used by CVS users, end
> users of the tarball (I know, it is not released, will be released,
> rsn, as soon as I get raph's permission to do so).
> 

It seems a bit odd, then to release tarballs of anything that requires
things that themselves are not released as tarballs.  If one of the
Gnome goals is to come up with an enterprise desk top, the word
processing program is key to it.

I've been having some arguments on another list about what Open Source
is and who it should be for, and why nobody should care about end users
who aren't programmers who can patch the bugs they find.  My feeling on
that is then all that will result in  are more tools and toys for
programmers and systems admins, which is wonderful in its own way.  At
which point, I'll wait for the tarballs and just do my research for the
novel by observing and all that.

And I know that you (collectively) had some criticism from another tarballista, so maybe everyone is a bit touchy now.

But either this is for the traditional Open Source people and it's tools
and a desktop for making more tools and more desktops, or it's also
aimed at non-programming users.  If so, the most critical programs for
those users are the word processing program, email, package managing tools
(gnorpm is great, thanks), and the spread sheet.

One reason I got involved in this is that often I found I'd download
programs and if they were buggy, I wouldn't say anything, just delete
them.  Eventually, I thought it would be better if I told the developers
about the bugs.  Sometimes, the program wasn't quite there; sometimes
I'd mis-managed things; sometimes the bug was fixed in the next release.

No, I can't offer patches.  On another list, I went through this with
the chief maintainer, who said that he valued a good bug report better
than a mediocre patch.  I think we're willing to be the tarballistas and
the second ranks if there's a sense that we are part of the team in our
own way.  And I think some of us at least have some value to you for
what we bring to the evaluation process that's not from the programming
community.

If we shouldn't be here, then it would be a good idea if there was a
news group.  This list is now the main source of informationa about
Gnome, what's new, how to compile it, and all that.  If we're just
noise here, then where do we go for advice?

-- 
Rebecca Ore