Re: Map Library

[Michael Terry <michael terry canonical com>]

On 06/04/11 13:08, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> On Mon, 2011-04-04 at 14:05 -0400, Michael Terry wrote:
> > Bump!  Any thoughts on the idea of splitting out the map widget into a
> > library (new or existing) for easier use by other packages like
> > Ubiquity, other installers, etc?
> There's no plans for it. I'd find it particularly hard to believe that
> your employer would want to use GPL-non-attributed code in Ubiquity,
> given how hard we had to work to get the source files for the map used
> in that widget (which we still don't have, despite the brave efforts of
> some of your colleagues).
I realize there are no plans for it now, but I was hoping we could 
create a plan.  This map library wouldn't be part of Ubiquity's source, 
it would just be a linked library, which attributed code uses all the time.

> In my opinion, most users shouldn't even see this map during the
> installer, or afterwards, given a working Internet connection. I'd want
> the system to figure out where the user is by default.
I can understand the desire to have things work automatically, but I 
suspect you'll always want a manual 'escape hatch' for such 
functionality.  Plus, the map (or associated timezone code) might be 
useful in other contexts like picking timezones that you want displayed 
in your clock.

Are you saying you don't believe other applications have valid uses for 
the map, so you'd rather not split the code out?  Let me put it this 
way: right now Ubuntu has two copies of this code (and will have three 
once we push the new control center after natty is released).  I'd like 
to see a library used for it in Ubuntu 11.10 to reduce the duplication 
(it's not really all that much code, but a good chunk of data).  I 
figured you'd rather have that be part of GNOME so we could all benefit 
from any patches.

-mt