Copyleft vs permissive license arguments get in the way of making good technical decisions IMO - except when the distinction is needed for NON-ideological arguments.
Backwards compatibility has a couple of points to commend it: * not alienating existing base in the hopes of pursuing a new base * although it’s more work, the discipline involved CAN result in cleaner code in the long run. IMO if X.org dumped imake, that’s a good reason to think about doing the same; HOWEVER, _if_ some of the platforms that the hardcore copyleft advocates would ignore cannot reasonably support autotools, then IMO that _is_ a reason to accept the complexity of dual build systems. To those who think that code has some natural right to be open source, backwards compatibility is merely a compromise with the lack of that; but to those who simply want to USE something and leave the ideology behind, it’s _necessary_. I’ve got Macs (Mac Mini 2007 and 2011) and Suns (the most modern being a T5240) at home, and while from time to time I run a Linux VM on one of the Macs, it’s not what I use on a daily basis, but simply something for re-creating situations others might encounter. My immediate interest is getting CDE on OS X and Solaris 11. AFAIK, both of those either have automake/autoconf from the vendor, or have it in a reasonably well-supported packaging of free software (e.g. MacPorts for OS X). So I would suppose porting to OS X (Solaris 11 supposedly more or less works, although I gather SPARC hasn’t been tried yet?) is if anything likelier with autotools than without. On Nov 18, 2014, at 6:43 AM, Bruno Félix Rezende Ribeiro <oitofe...@gnu.org> wrote: > Hello Steven! > > Em Mon, 17 Nov 2014 23:54:43 -0800 > Steven Edwards <winehac...@gmail.com> escreveu: > >> I couldn't find any information on if anyone else is working on >> either of these but I've started hacking on it in my local tree and >> am making pretty good progress. > > I sent a message a few days ago to this very mailing list > expressing my desire of migrating CDE's build system to GNU > Autotools[0]. Unfortunately, CDE developers don't seem very receptive > to this idea. > > I'm not the first one looking for this, however. Oleksiy has > contributed a significant amount of code for this end long before I > came to the scene[1]. His lengthy patch and the discussion around it > was just plainly ignored to the death of his helpful initiative. > > On Sourceforge there are 8 forks of CDE's VCS code, but none of them > implements Oleksiy changes, or any other in the direction of GNU > Autotools. Even if a patch for this end was accepted by the main > developers, they would still require Imake build system to be working > in parallel (imagine the mess), dragging the development of a efficient, > stable and standard build system. Furthermore, they require any > contribution to be under a permissive license, and I don't feel > comfortable with that, because to me copyleft is an achievement we > should not give up without a very compelling reason, for the benefit of > user's freedom. Therefore, I'm afraid there is no other reasonable way > of getting the build system migrated seamlessly if not by a fork. > > I'm very interested in this and I'm considering the possibility of > making a fork of CDE for the GNU project, so it can be one of the > official desktops of the GNU's project distribution of the GNU > system[3] that, coincidently, had a release today. I'm thinking about > naming it "GDE", which stands for "GNU Desktop Environment". > > The first step is to migrate CDE's code to GNU Savannah[4]. Then we > can say good bye to the bloated and awful Sourceforge web interface and > its commercial appeal[5]. > > CDE's original project could still fill the niche of supporting ancient > proprietary unices, with its ancient build system and worries about > retro-compatibility for an undefined amount of time, eventually and > deliberately letting some self-interested people or corporation take > away CDE's users freedom; the freedom that take so much time and > efforts to achieve! > > We just doesn't have to follow that path! We can do better: the GNU > way! :-) > > What do you think? Don't you want to contribute to this effort even > further? > > > Footnotes: > [0] http://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/mailman/message/33045815/ > [1] http://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/mailman/message/30437899/ > [3] http://www.gnu.org/software/guix > [4] http://savannah.gnu.org/ > [5] If you have received this mail through the mailing list look at its > footer: comercial advertising! How can developers tolerate this > behavior in every corner of their development facilities? > > -- > ,= ,-_-. =. Bruno Félix Rezende Ribeiro (oitofelix) [0x28D618AF] > ((_/)o o(\_)) There is no system but GNU; > `-'(. .)`-' GNU Linux-Libre is one of its official kernels; > \_/ All software must be free as in freedom; > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server > from Actuate! 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