Re: Survey results

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel ximian com>]

Hello,

> So, the Windows port stays in the tree, but perhaps we should drop support
> to all compilers but one.  I mean MinGW - it's free, it's maintained, it
> comes with Cygwin.  Also I would like to use "configure" rather than rely 
> on the distributed pc/config.h.

Well, there is the issue of how to attract Windows people to use MC.  I
am not sure if MC will ever compete on the Windows world with other
alternatives (I have not kept track of the alternatives on Windows
myself), but it would be nice to encourage the Windows port to be
maintained.

> The only "tough call" is mcserv.  It got just 2 votes despite being rather
> bug-free (although slow) and despite being distributed as a separate
> package by many Linux distributions (even by the brand-new Mandrake 9.0),
> whcih could give it some "legitimacy".

Mcserv is only useful for those trying to understand the VFS code, and
it serves as a reference implementation.  A poor one, which is also
insecure and not particularly good.   The insecurity bit regarding the
password can be fixed by just using a challenge/response mechanism to
validate the login information instead of using the plain text, but that
still keeps the data insecure.

mcserv used to fill the hole of "copy files across computers" which is
still a useful thing when you lack sysadmin privileges to do an nfs/smb
mount.  So maybe the functionality is important for some people, if this
is the case, maybe we should also include mcserv functionality from the
Command menu `Start Slave Mode' or something.

> I think that mcserv should be spun off as a separate project.  It is good
> for development of embedded systems, when the memory size is an issue, and
> the security is not.  mcserv can be made very portable, more portable than
> mc itself (think MS DOS, VxWorks, Netware etc).  As for mcfs, it should
> stay in the code, disabled by default.

If you disable the code, it will get bit rot.  You should just keep it
enabled.  That is my suggestion, unless you plan to completely drop
mcfs.  

I think that disabling mcfs and splitting off mcserv amounts to
completely removing the code.  So either the code stay or you remove it,
the middle ground is just too much work, and would result in dead code
anyways. 

Miguel.