Re: beta release of gtk2-perl-xs, please try it out

[Ross McFarland <rwmcfa1 neces com>]

On Tue, 2003-05-20 at 06:42, Guillaume Cottenceau wrote:
> muppet <scott asofyet org> writes:
>
> >   http://asofyet.org/muppet/software/gtk2-perl/Glib-0.20BETA.tar.gz
>
> I've quickly looked at some XS sources because since I'm author
> of some code you kept, I was curious to see what Copyright
> mentions would be used :). They seem to not contain any copyright
> or license reference. I humbly think this is dangerous and should
> be fixed (and probably this is also illegal because it contains
> GPL code which can't be unlicensed).
>
> Just to make things clear: I don't request that my name would be
> inserted in source-code. However, I think that legally it should
> be needed. From a practical point, in old-gtk2-perl we've used
> copyrights with the name of the first person who introduced a
> given source-file in the cvs, which is not stricly legal neither,
> but I guess it was easy for us to do so. I've noticed my name in
> Glib.pm and it's already enough to fulfill my pathologically
> oversized ego :).
>
> >   http://asofyet.org/muppet/software/gtk2-perl/Gtk2-0.20BETA.tar.gz

yeah there needs to be license files in each of the sub modules. which i
would assume would be GPL, since some of the code is taken from things
that were. as for the authors stuff i don't know about the first one to
put a file in cvs. i would think it would be best to have an authors
file that said that some portion of the code was written by or almost
directly copied from code by ... i don't think trying to put ownership
on each file would be a reasonable or necessary task.

> Compiling, newbie mode engaged.
>
> Glib: ok
>
> Gtk2:
>
> [gc bi ~/rpm/tmp/Gtk2-0.20] perl Makefile.PL 
> Can't locate ExtUtils/Depends.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.0/i386-linux-thread-multi 
> /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.0 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/i386-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0 
> /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl 
> /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.0/i386-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.0 
> /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl .) at Makefile.PL line 9.
> BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at Makefile.PL line 9.
>
> Since I'm in newbie mode, I don't go further :).

i assume either that you did not install Glib, or that it was installed
in a non system location. neither of which are issues that can be solved
by the packages and their build systems. the only thing that can be done
is an attempt at a step by step project wide install document. 

as is obvious to you a dependency isn't met. muppet and i discussed
yesterday whether ExtUtils::Depends should become it's own public and
separate module. i don't see a reason why not. with CPAN it would just
be a prereq of glib. it's just the old gtk-perl file that's been heavily
modified by muppet and put in a more appropriate name space. there's
nothing we can do to clarify the situation above, if you don't have
dependencies met, b/c you didn't install them or b/c their not in the
normal search path, that's that. but making ExtUtils::Depends a separate
module would make it clear what you needed to get. and i would
personally think that some other project/person outside of Glib/Gtk may
have some use for Depends. i would argue that it's not straightforward
that ExtUtils::Depends should have been installed by Glib. 

there was a discussion a while back about the build and install system
and it was someone's opinion that things should be built in a manner
that took the target audience into consideration. that audience
primarily being people who install from packages, secondarily being
CPAN, and then those who install from source. 

the above wouldn't have been a problem with packages as the rpm/deb for
Gtk would have the dependency of Glib (which would of installed
Depends.) The same is true for CPAN. i guess it would be argued that the
newbie wouldn't try building from source and that if he/she did a step
be step HOWTO document is about as much as you can/should do to help
them along.

one other issue to be addressed. who has the cpan author account that
gtk2-perl is currently under?

as always, only my opinions, and long winded at that.
-rm