On 12.12.2003 16:33:44 Clay Leeds wrote: > Thanks for doing the legwork to get perspective on how important ant > is. I'll definitely be saddling up (yeehaw!) and checking it out.
You had to install Forrest, too, right? Another tool a fop-dev has to come used to. > However, I too don't think fop-users (maintenance branch anyway) should > have to download and configure ant for their purposes. Since ant is a > build tool, I guess if a fop-user downloads the binary version > (pre-built), they won't have to worry about ant anyway, so that point > is moot for binary fop-users. Right. Users shouldn't have to come in contact with Ant IMO. > In any case, I don't think fop-users (maintenance branch) should have > to download any more than necessary. I guess what this means, is that I > think the Maintenance Branch should include ant in the source > distribution, because I think it'll help limit traffic from people > asking for help. Regardless of whether or not the Maintenance Branch > includes ant, we may need to update the Build/Compiling page w more > info on how to use ant (it currently contains a link to Ant--is that > enough?). Well, HEAD will again spawn a maintenance branch some time in the future. Anyway, I think it's basically a matter of documentation and good error/info messages. There are other problems, too: We simply can't bundle some of the third-party JARs (Jimi, JAI) because of licensing problems. I think there will always be some work involved until you can run/build FOP (or any other Java product for that matter). It's our job to make these tasks as unproblematic as possible. Jeremias Maerki
