Re: future of CTWM
OK, I've fetched the archive of releases that Claude sent me, and am going to set up a CVS repository with it in the next few days (maybe sooner, but I'm alone with the kid this weekend, so my time is currently a bit on the short side). I just now made it secure (using the OSSP Shiela ACL and log script, you can see it for yourself by clicking in the right places at www.ossp.org) and ready for external developpers (with no need to add accounts, all I will need is your SSH key and the usual checkup). With time, I will take in other people to help development, in a meritocratic sort of way: do some work, send me patches that I don't reject (key feature! :-)) and that are more than just a small bug fix, and be patient. Basicaly, show me your competence and make sure you want to dedicate time on this project in a consistent way. For other logistics, I assume the following changes will be needed: - move of mailing list, unless Claude wants to keep managing that part. - move of web site, of there is one (all I've found is ctwm.dl.nu, and if that one is fine with everyone, I sure don't mind one thing less to deal with. I will need to know how releases have been handled so far, though). - Unless I release to ctwm.dl.nu in some way, move of release repository. I plan to distribute with HTTP only (because it's easier to handle in a firewall, that's all :-)). No need for FTP here, and with nice utilities like wget, it's user-friendly too :-). Anything else that I need to set up? Ah, yes, I'm going to set up a bug tracker using RT2 (why RT2? Because I already know it, and it works for my purposes). When that one is up, I'd appreciate it if anyone having a wish, a bug to report or a patch simply sent it that way. There will be mailing lists to handle this. Now, some people here talked about licensing fees or something like that. I don't quite know how I will set something like that up, but I'd sure appreciate some donations (regular ones would be great!), it would diminish my need to spend time on real jobs or consulting assignments. Please tell me what information you need to make something like this possible (I'm new at handling donations, so I'm not sure wjat I need to tell you). Any other questions that need to be answered? Fire away! -- Richard Levitte | http://richard.levitte.org/ | Spannv. 38, I Levitte Programming | http://www.lp.se/ | S-168 35 Bromma T: +46-708-26 53 44 | | SWEDEN Price, performance, quality... choose the two you like
Re: future of CTWM
On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 04:41:47PM -0500 I heard the voice of
Michael George, and lo! it spake thus:
Here I think you're right. I'd say that those of us who use what many
call minimalist WMs have either been using *nix for decades or are
very technically oriented.
Most of my friends around here use KDE or Gnome these days, and say
things like, Yeah, we USED to use twm, but that's only because we didn't
have a choice; now we DO have a choice, why do you keep using it?. I
swear they're speaking English, but I don't understand how the words fit
together 8-)
Perhaps not. I have technically minded, but graphics programming I
have never done. I doubt I'd be very adept at doing it. Now if we
need Linux drivers I might be able to do that! :)
True, to be sure. OTOH, you know C well enough to be able, with some
effort, to wrap your head around the parts of the code that don't
directly fiddle with the X interface. And if you really set your mind to
it, you could probably learn enough to understand that. So I think it is
with most of us; heck, just looking at the Xlib API gives me the
screaming meemies (however you spell that), but aside from that I can
usually figure out enough to get by.
The user community as a whole is technical enough that when they find a
problem, they'll try to solve it themselves before piping up Hey, this
doesn't work. So, they'll either solve it themselves and mention the
problem and the solution, or they'll get it as far as they can and be
able to give much better problem reports than XYZ doesn't work. And I
think there's enough people here who have done enough {yacc,X
programming,etc} to be able to jump in and help narrow it down.
With those bounds, I think we can have pretty good faith that it won't be
as easy as any one or any ten people throwing in their towels to kill
forward motion.
I *only* meant that as the specs for WMs change that if ctwm is not
modified it will eventually become out of date. Not many people use
twm anymore, I'd guess (but I've guessed wrong before... :) I
certainly did *not* mean that it is an archiac design or piece of
software! If some can take up the baton,
It _is_ archaic, because it's based around rather old paradigms (boy, I
hate using that word sometimes). It's not obsolete, though, because
nobody's yet come up with a better paradigm :)
I hear you! And I have no intention of moving. However, if I need to
open gnumeric or some other graphical app and it croaks becaue ctwm
didn't implement some part of a protocol, it's utility will lessen for
me.
This is something I haven't yet encountered (though I've never tried
gnumeric or a lot of other newer apps, so I may just be living a
sheltered life). I expect this will be one of those areas where sooner
or later, someone will give; writing X apps that require a certain WM
kinda flies in the face of the whole reason the WM is just another
client in the first place. Hrmph. Well, I have faith it'll be a
temporary problem.
However, X11 on two VT's might cover stuff like that, too :)
Nah; just use Xnest; have it take up the whole screen on one workspace,
and *bam*; done :)
--
Matthew Fuller (MF4839) | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Systems/Network Administrator | http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/
The only reason I'm burning my candle at both ends, is because I
haven't figured out how to light the middle yet
future of CTWM
I haven't seen anyone post anything about taking over ctwm, except that some have offered to pay for its maintenance and some have offered a home for its site... I'm sure CTWM will be find to use as-is for some time to come. However, with the increase in GNOME and KDE apps and their desire for more functionality on the desktop, ctwm will become obsolete someday. Does anyone here know of an approximate replacement for ctwm? With mult desktops, not just a big virtual desktop, with the .twmrc-like config file, etc...? -- In light of the terrorist attack on the U.S.: They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Re: future of CTWM
This is a message so that you don't lose hope quite yet. I've mailed directly to Claude saying that I was *thinking* about take up the challenge of bringing CTWM further. I'm still thinking, and I must weigh in the needs of other projects (I'm one of the developpers pf OpenSSL, and probably one of the more active ones) and family. I must say that the offers of pay are quite encouraging, and if that is a reality (I'm sorry, I don't mean to be suspicious, it's just that I've never been payed for freeware work before. so I'm stumbling a bit, and I need to be a little cautious), working on CTWM will most probably be a reality for me. As I'm writing, I'm thinking I need to get the picture, so I think I'll ask Claude to send me all versions he has a copy of (I want to make sure I have as much history as I can), or point at a URL, and I'd like to get all proposed patches he has available. I'll go back into my mail archive and reread all I can so I can see the development as it has been going on the last year or so (I've been very much a lurker). After that, I'll set up a CVS repository with all those versions and we'll go from there. I'm thinking I could do maintainance for a while to kind of feel it out. If I still like it in, say, half a year, I'll keep the job, otherwise, I'll reassess the situation at that time. Claude, does that sound like a plan? What say the rest on this list? As for a home, I will hopefully have something set up today... If not, I might take up the offer from whoever that was, at least for a while. In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Wed, 15 Jan 2003 21:41:42 -0500, Michael George [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: george I'm sure CTWM will be find to use as-is for some time to come. george However, with the increase in GNOME and KDE apps and their george desire for more functionality on the desktop, ctwm will become george obsolete someday. Can I find out what those demands are from earlier mail, or can anyone give me a recap? -- Richard Levitte | http://richard.levitte.org/ | Spannv. 38, I Levitte Programming | http://www.lp.se/ | S-168 35 Bromma T: +46-708-26 53 44 | | SWEDEN Price, performance, quality... choose the two you like
Re: future of CTWM
On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 10:01:24AM +0100, Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker wrote: This is a message so that you don't lose hope quite yet. I've mailed directly to Claude saying that I was *thinking* about take up the challenge of bringing CTWM further. I'm still thinking, and I must weigh in the needs of other projects (I'm one of the developpers pf OpenSSL, and probably one of the more active ones) and family. I must say that the offers of pay are quite encouraging, and if that is a reality (I'm sorry, I don't mean to be suspicious, it's just that I've never been payed for freeware work before. so I'm stumbling a bit, and I need to be a little cautious), working on CTWM will most probably be a reality for me. Sounds good to me! The only think I see missing is that I've had GNOME apps that refuse to start up in ctwm. I think that has to do with the desktop vs. window manager difference... Is that what ICCM is about? I'm sorry I don't know more about the WM's, I wish I did. But my day job is working on Mac OS X drivers and utilities so I already have to suffer with a change in working paradigm amongst other things... And believe me, working on a desktop like OS X (or KDE or GNOME or Win 95, etc) and all the mousing I have to do and the lack of a good VWM sure makes me love CTWM all the more! As for paying, whomever takes on this project can feel free to chache my email address and when the handoff is done we can talk about how much and how frequently. I'm not made of $$, but it *is* a business expense for me... From there I'll mark my calendar and the maintainer(s) can email me. Anyone else who would be willing to help out like this, please let the appropriate people know. -Michael -- In light of the terrorist attack on the U.S.: They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Re: future of CTWM
Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Wed, 15 Jan 2003 21:41:42 -0500, Michael George [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: george I'm sure CTWM will be find to use as-is for some time to come. george However, with the increase in GNOME and KDE apps and their george desire for more functionality on the desktop, ctwm will become george obsolete someday. Can I find out what those demands are from earlier mail, or can anyone give me a recap? I guess the most important part is to implement the NETWM spec or WMNET spec or whatever it is called. That's used by KDE and Gnome to communicate with the window manager. -- Ambibibentists unite!
Re: future of CTWM
Michael George [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Does anyone here know of an approximate replacement for ctwm? With mult desktops, not just a big virtual desktop, with the .twmrc-like config file, etc...? After ctwm, I've used fvwm2 and Sawfish. Both have a quite different config file syntax. Sawfish is nice because it's very configurable. Arguably, good configurability is a strong point of ctwm. People also might like to investigate more esoteric window managers -- just to broaden the horizon perhaps. There is Ion which partitions the screen into nonoverlapping frames, and there is larswm which can position windows automatically (such that the most important window is biggest), and then there is ratpoison which provides an Emacs-like split-window interface (like C-x 2 and C-x 3 in Emacs). I've also stumbled across nwm (not a window manager) which can be used to enhance the capabilities of a lesser window manager. (Though KDE is too stubborn :-() -- Ambibibentists unite!
Re: future of CTWM
On Wed, Jan 15, 2003 at 09:41:42PM -0500 I heard the voice of Michael George, and lo! it spake thus: I haven't seen anyone post anything about taking over ctwm, except that some have offered to pay for its maintenance and some have offered a home for its site... I rather think the community as a whole would be averse to letting it die 8-) And, I'd venture that as a whole the community of ctwm users is more serious and more technically knowledgeable than the community of most other window managers (though that could just be my own conceit). With the number of people, and especially with the presence of sites like SourceForge (which has its own problems, but that's neither here nor there), we're unlikely to ever lack for space and bandwidth to host it. And with the users in general, we're unlikely to lack for maintenance, and probably not for people implementing new features. I'm sure CTWM will be find to use as-is for some time to come. However, with the increase in GNOME and KDE apps and their desire for more functionality on the desktop, ctwm will become obsolete someday. Pshaw. If the ctwm outlook on UI functionality is obsolete, just lock me up in the Tower of London :) Does anyone here know of an approximate replacement for ctwm? With mult desktops, not just a big virtual desktop, with the .twmrc-like config file, etc...? If I knew of a better WM, I'd be using it. I've got patches on my webpage for the few things that ctwm didn't let me do that I wanted to, and a little script suite to handle the config files. I did my searching for a 'better' WM that already did what I wanted, and I'm still here. Guess that about covers it. -- Matthew Fuller (MF4839) | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Systems/Network Administrator | http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/ The only reason I'm burning my candle at both ends, is because I haven't figured out how to light the middle yet
