On Thu, Nov 23, 2006 at 10:44:12AM -0800, Andi Vajda wrote:
> In any case, it's not that hard to build yourself, it takes a few hours 
> depending on the speed of your system.

I have to say that a few hours is not a very good standard for
installing software such as PyLucene.  I am used installing software
in a few minutes.  When I can't use yum, apt-get, or rpm, I am used to
the three-line installation procedure, "configure; make; make install".
Indeed, a configuration script is an important intermediate step that
makes it easier for other people to make RPM packages and Debian packages.
I have been using Unix for 20 years, admittedly more as a user than
as a developer, and I have never been very happy with hand-configuring
Makefiles.

Moreover, in this case I depend on PyLucene for a project that I may
want to "sell" to other people.  Part of the sell is going to be that
it isn't too hard for them to install.

PyLucene is an important project.  It is a bridge between Python,
which is monumentally important, and Lucene, which is also important.
When PyLucene works, it works really well, because Lucene is more
complete and more scalable than many alternatives.  PyLucene is also
faster than Lucene itself.  That said, I think that the difficult of
installing PyLucene, and maybe also the haphazard documentation, are
the main shortcomings of the project right now.  I think that you could
multiply your user base by 10 if you concentrated on documentation and
installation for a while.

If OSAF has other priorities for PyLucene or for your time otherwise,
then you have every right to point that out.  On the other hand, Chandler
itself is supposed to be for user-friendly collaboration.  It's strange
for them not to care more about cross-Unix installation.

-- 
  /\  Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
 /  \ Home page: http://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~greg/
 \  / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
  \/  * All the math that's fit to e-print *
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