Chooser Widgets Develpment Policy [WAS: Quick Linux Question]

[Bob Warren]

Thanks very much for the useful info, Stomfi!

For new Linux users, Stomfi is a VERY distinguished Linux educator. You 
can find a wealth of top information written by him at

http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/author/1211.html

However, with regard to the distribution of Linux/Mac versions of my 
File/Picture Chooser widgets, even if I think I know how to make the 
widgets work in other flavours of Linux or Mac, the fact that I am 
unable to test them personally goes against my grain a little. At this 
point I need to think very carefully about how best to come up with a 
decent policy in regard to this situation. If anybody has any 
interesting ideas about the subject, I would be very grateful to hear them.

What I MIGHT do is the following. At the moment, I only have conditions 
to test the widgets (or any software for that matter) in Windows and 
Ubuntu Linux. Responsibility for the reliability of the widgets in 
Windows and Ubuntu Linux would remain entirely my own. However, if I 
released the source stacks for the Linux version, other interested 
parties could make the (probably small) adaptions necessary for 
functioning in other Linuxes and Mac.

What I need your advice on is what conditions (if any) you think I 
should attach to the above procedure. As I have said before, I have no 
commercial ambitions with regard to these chooser widgets. On the other 
hand, I would like to receive whatever recognition I deserve for the 
months of effort behind their production. A situation I would like to 
avoid is where 1 week after releasing the source code I find that 
somebody is selling a pair of "super widgets" at "only" $500, with 
absolutely no mention of yours truly or howsoft.com, and in fact the 
only contribution they really made to the development was the alteration 
of a few lines of coding.

But I have perhaps now answered my own question. I should release the 
source stacks under the condition that if any part of the coding is used 
or adapted by 3rd parties (for profit or not), it must be 1) 
acknowledged; 2) outside the responsibility of myself or howsoft.com 
(which is a non-commercial site). Of course, this is impossible to 
enforce, but anyone disobeying the conditions would at least be doing 
something illegal. And of course there would be a didactic spinoff (a 
thing close to my teacher's heart), if not to teach anybody anything 
(which I do not have the RR experience to do yet), at least to show 
people the kinds of mistakes or inefficiencies that relative beginners 
are capable of!

What would YOU do in my shoes? Please don't hesitate to chime in on this 
issue - ALL of you.

Best regards,
Bob



---------------------------------------------------------------
Stomfi wrote:

 >Re your Linux stuff

 >The Linux syntax to  mount any media whether  in fstab or  not is

 >mount devicename mountpoint

 >see the  man page for option  flags

 >to mount a floppy at /media/floppy one could write
 >in Linux shell code

 >#Make sure mount point exists
 >mkdir /media /media/floppy
 >#may have to give it read/write permission
 >chmod +rw /media/floppy
 >#mount the media
 >mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy

 >and to check it got mounted

 >mount | grep floppy

 >Of course the mount point doesn't have to be where fstab says it is,
 >it could be any where you can set read/write permissions
 >like $HOME/media/floppy.

 >Better to check it is mounted first because many of the newer
 >versions of Linux automount the floppy and other removable media
 >like windows does. A bit of a security hole, but like all things
 >Windoze,  "Ease of Use" is more important than system security.
 >This also means that you don't have to "umount /media/floppy" to
 >unmount it as this happens automagically as well.

 >Re your keys problem, your Linux window manager may have set this
 >key to something else. RunRev does work better in GNOME which is GTK
 >based, but KDE is also popular as many Windows indoctrinated users
 >like it.

 >Then like all things Linux there is the choice of all the rest of
 >the window managers. Its a bit like a deaf blind person having lots
 >of wives or husbands. You are never quite sure what to say until
 >they bite your ear. But I like it.

 >Kind regards
 >Stomfi

--------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Warren wrote:

 >> Dear Mark,
 >>
 >> I have asked the following simple Linux question on-List, but I have not
 >> received any kind of answer. It suddenly occurs to me that you might be
 >> the most qualified person to give me the answer I am seeking.
 >>
 >> As you may have seen recently, I have produced a pair of standalone
 >> file/picture chooser widgets for Windows (see
 >> http://www.howsoft.com/runrev/stacks.htm). I am now working on the Linux
 >> version. The trouble is that I do not have extra computers available to
 >> install versions of Linux other than the one I am using (Ubuntu Hoary
 >> Hedgehog: the floppy doesn't work at all in Breezy Badger!), so I am not
 >> in a position where I can easily discover things for myself.
 >>
 >> In Ubuntu (Debian based, Gnome), I am using routines such as the
 >> following to mount/read CDs and diskettes:
 >>
 >> on mouseUp
 >>   get shell("mount /media/floppy0") --or "/media/floppy"
 >>   set the defaultFolder to "/media/floppy0" --or "/media/floppy"
 >>   put the files into field "List1"
 >> end mouseUp
 >>
 >> on mouseUp
 >>   get shell("mount /media/cdrom0") --or "/media/cdrom"
 >>   set the defaultFolder to "/media/cdrom0" --or "/media/cdrom"
 >>   put the files into field "List1"
 >> end mouseUp
 >>
 >> In Ubuntu, I am checking the existence of the CD and diskette drives
 >> using fstab in the folder "/etc", which of course also specifies the
 >> mount points:
 >>
 >> # /etc/fstab: static file system information.
 >> #
 >> # <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
 >> proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
 >> /dev/hda1       /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro
 >> 0       1
 >> /dev/hda5       none            swap    sw              0       0
 >> /dev/hdc        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 ro,user,noauto  0       0
 >> /dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto  0       0
 >>
 >>
 >> Can you give me some general advice as to how I should check/mount/read
 >> the diskette and CD in other versions of Linux? Are main differences
 >> between Gnome and KDE interfaces, or is it more profound than that? Will
 >> /etc/fstab always give me the info I need, or might I need to look
 >> elsewhere? (Sorry, part of the problem is my lack of experience with
 >> Linux anyway.) A nice feature for the future in RR would be the ability
 >> to quickly identify more specifically the exact Linux platform in use
 >> insofar as it significantly affects programming options such as the ones
 >> outlined here.
 >>
 >> As for producing a Mac version of the widgets, that's where I am really
 >> stuck. I don't know anything about the Mac file system at all. Here in
 >> Brazil, Macs are impossibly expensive (even the Mac Mini which is almost
 >> 3 times the price in the US). However, I imagine that when the Linux
 >> version is ready (hopefully within a week or so), it would be easier to
 >> convert this version to Mac than to convert it from the Windows version.
 >> How would you go about getting the widgets converted to Mac? Or would
 >> you just forget it?
 >>
 >> This was meant to be a quick e-mail, but I cannot fail to mention an RR
 >> Linux bug that is bugging me, in the hope that it also does not appear
 >> in 2.7. If I am editing a script with the toolbar showing, and I use
 >> CTRL+S to save rather than closing the editing window and then saving,
 >> the IDE goes nuts. It seems to get stuck in a loop where first the
 >> toolbar is brought to the front, and then the editor is brought to the
 >> front. Fortunately, the problem can usually be solved by closing the
 >> editing window either before or after saving, but the constant use of
 >> CTRL+S without closing the editing window is so useful that I would
 >> indeed like to see this fixed in 2.7. (Could this possibly be a timing
 >> problem? I should add that I am using a very old and slow Pentium II
 >> with a small memory.)
 >>
 >>
 >> Best regards,
 >> Bob
 >>
 >> P.S.
 >> Please note that I have also posted this e-mail to the Use-Revolution
 >> List. Its content is of potential interest to other RR Linux users. But
 >> I would be grateful for any kind of answer, either on-List or off-List.
 >> Thanks. If you decide to give me an answer off-List, I can still pass on
 >> any useful info to other RR Linux users myself.
 >>
 >> P.P.S.
 >> All of this does, of course, point to the importance of extending the
 >> Help info with more Linux-specific information, especially in relation
 >> to "bread and butter" (or in Brazil "black beans and rice") issues such
 >> as the ones I have raised.
 >>
 >>
 >>