I understand your POV, but simply I think differently.
The last thing that I want to say todoay about that, is that we
could think Harbour future as Linux one.
There is dozens (hundreds?) of distros.
As you know, each distro has his own group of developers that
creates an 'special' one, suited for a clear purpose from the same
code base (Linux kernel and GNU utils).
Even there is distros based on other distros that are based on other
distros (Mint->Ubuntu->Debian).
So, The users make his choice and Linux become more and more stronger.
If these groups are big enough to compete with
each other, this can be beneficial, but in case
of Harbour - let's face it - the complete Harbour
user base is barely enough to make it survive,
and each competing group is so small, that the
effect you say just doesn't hold for Harbour in
practice. [ Or will you continue Harbour development,
in case the rest of the Harbour universe dies? ]
Moreover, some parallelisms are rather blocking
Linux to get more widespread adoption: Having two
incompatible packaging systems is IMO a huge drawback
with no perceivable benefit for users, just more
headaches. Of course a lot of other parallelisms can
be interesting and useful, but not all of them and
not forever.
The same could happen to Harbour.
It's a pipe dream at this point in time. It could,
but it won't unless the user base gets much wider.
If you scatter distros this hardly will happen.
Currently the best thing we could do is to *JOIN*
efforts, rather than each developer goes into his
own direction.
It's far enough to have Harbour and xhb splitting
user base into two, with HMG one half is split again
(not to mention the other 2-3 HMG variants, of which
one also supplies Harbour).
BTW, having separate distros shouldn't mean these
distros should be unable to interoperate.
Everyone is encouraged to create binary builds.
But it's best to keep them *compatible* and it's not
a satanic idea to use some sort of common dir layout,
and follow other common *standards*. Otherwise users
will be just *locked-in* to one distro or another.
So I'd say, if someone feels like competing, the
best interest of all Harbour users is to compete
on some compatible grounds. Offer some more, but
keep your stuff open and interoperable.
Unfortunately in case of HMG, I just can't seen
openness, or free of choice now, Harbour version
is fixed, compiler type is fixed, toolset is bare
minimum, std build tool is dropped.
With latest move you benefited that your users can
come here to complain about harbour bugs, but you
effectively closed the door to offer support for
non-HMG Harbour users on your own forums. Plus for
sure you shut out some Harbour developers/users from
effective participation on your forums.
So, to succeed, Harbour must be OPEN to be suited as needed by users.
The best thing that could happen to Harbour is that more distros
emerge from the same code base.
Which are not compatible with each other, so they
don't allow users to easily move between them.
Just my humble and 'friendly' opinion :)
To me excluding hbmk2 and crucial docs from a Harbour
distro is not very friendly. Sorry to say, but that's
how I feel about it. Definitely not something which
will bring different Harbour universes closer.
BTW, if you have specific hbmk2 problems I'm interested
in hearing them, at least those can be cleared in
case we get around politics in the future ;)
I tested recently posted .hbc file (+ .bat file) successfully
with 2.9.x HMG version, and while I might have missed
something, it's certainly doesn't seem like a mission impossible.
Also notice that extra .hbc/.hbm files can easily be
added to samples which need it.
Brgds,
Viktor
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