Hiya Martin,

Would you have any objection to my adding a Git repo format of OT - the aim being to save an awful lot of time and effort merging updates as & when they occur.

As for the "unpublishable" elements, are they source code or library and if library, statically or dynamically linked ? I ask coz it makes a difference as to how you are legally permitted to use/reference them.

Best rgds
Dave P

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pointo1d wrote: Would you have any objection to my adding a Git repo format of OT - the aim being to save an awful lot of time and effort merging updates as & when they occur.Hi Dave,

Can you explain a bit more what you are asking? I've not been involved in an open-source project before, and I'm a bit hazy about how it works. I've installed an SVN repository on Sourceforge and a Tortoise SVN client on my machine. But I haven't yet done anything with them. Where do you want to add something - on there, or somewhere else?

 https://sourceforge.net/p/opentemplot/

My answer for now is that you can do anything which is allowed under the GPL licence. If you are asking me for permission to do more than that, my answer will have to wait until I have read up a bit more about it.

As for the "unpublishable" elements, are they source code or library and if library, statically or dynamically linked ? I ask coz it makes a difference as to how you are legally permitted to use/reference them.In a couple of cases it is source code which I purchased as proprietary products years ago. Since then I have significantly modified the source code. In another case it is a compiled unit (Delphi DCU file) which looks for a licence key in my code. It was available as a DLL, but I chose the more expensive option of a DCU file for easier integration and linking into the EXE. I don't know how either of those correspond to your static/dynamic question? They all have copyright clauses in the licence.

There is another one which is iffy. It was a proprietary product when I purchased the source, and modified it. I know that it was subsequently open-sourced by the developer, but I can't produce any evidence of that beyond his post several years ago on a forum, which didn't specify which licence. It is a bit academic at present because as it stands it won't compile on Lazarus.

For the present I want to get folks up to speed on what I have so far released. When that is all up and running, we can look to add these missing functions, perhaps using different open-source components. 

cheers,

Martin.

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Martin Wynne wrote: Hi Dave,

Can you explain a bit more what you are asking? I've not been involved in an open-source project before, and I'm a bit hazy about how it works. I've installed an SVN repository on Sourceforge and a Tortoise SVN client on my machine. But I haven't yet done anything with them. Where do you want to add something - on there, or somewhere else?

 https://sourceforge.net/p/opentemplot/

My answer for now is that you can do anything which is allowed under the GPL licence. If you are asking me for permission to do more than that, my answer will have to wait until I have read up a bit more about it.
I think what Dave is asking is to create a code repository on the OpenTemplot project site, using the GIT version control system. Whereas SVN is a good version control system, many software development systems have moved onto a distributed version control system like GIT. It makes it much easier to control software updates in the internet connected world.

So rather than just a zip file of the source code for people to download and modify - instead there is a copy of all the files in a version control system on Sourceforge.

At the moment with the zip file people can download and modify as required according to the licence. However it isn't very collaborative. If some one makes a modification, e.g. and open source pdf export how are they going to share it with all the other users? They are going to have to post their modified files for people to copy. However if someone else updates another dialog at the same time and uploads their files you then have one version with the new dialog and a different version with pdf export. By using a GIT version control repository the code from the two different updates can be checked for being compatible and then merged into one single code base.

I think Dave is asking for permission related to the management of the project on the Sourceforge rather than use of the code per se.

Adrian  

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Thanks Adrian.

I was advised that SVN/Tortoise was a simpler system that GIT, and more suitable for a small project with only a handful of contributors. The idea of several people uploading files at the same time is a bit amusing -- so far we haven't got any.

And despite reading up on this stuff, I'm still a bit hazy about what happens if 2 people DO upload the same file at the same time?

My main concern is for OpenTemplot to provide a back-stop for Templot2 in the event I'm no longer able to support the full Templot2 version.

If others want to create an alternative version of OpenTemplot with additional features that's great, but I feel it would be a project for them rather than me. I'm fully occupied with Templot2 and its missing docs, and trying to scale down my involvement rather than increase it.

I'm happy to be advised on the best way to proceed.

cheers,

Martin.

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TFT Adrian, from the repo type PoV, that's a bulls eye 

The conversion/migration (from SVN to Git) can fairly readily be accomplished and should IMO be attempted sooner rather than later whilst the volume of posited changes is manageable.

With your permission/agreement, I shall attempt same and post the results (a Git repo) to sit alongside the current SVN repo - once we have a concensus and all are satisfied, I suggest that the SVN repo be disabled.

What this does mean is that anybody wanting to contribute will have to have Git installed on their own machine, but that isn't as big a problem as it first may seem due to there being a plethora of such tools and toolsets available for Windoze e.g. https://git-scm.com.

Best rgds,
Dave P

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pointo1d wrote:What this does mean is that anybody wanting to contribute will have to have Git installed on their own machine, but that isn't as big a problem as it first may seem due to there being a plethora of such tools and toolsets available for Windoze e.g. https://git-scm.com.Hi Dave,

Our posts crossed. Could you explain your post in less compressed English?

As far as I'm concerned, no-one is going to be required to do anything. If folks have some code ideas they want to contribute, they can be just as happily posted on here for discussion as anywhere else.

cheers,

Martin.

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Martin Wynne wrote: Thanks Adrian.

I was advised that SVN/Tortoise was a simpler system that GIT, and more suitable for a small project with only a handful of contributors. The idea of several people uploading files at the same time is a bit amusing -- so far we haven't got any.

At one point that was probably true - but this was probably due to GIT being heavily command line driven at the time. However you can now get GIT/Tortoise and it makes it as easy to use and as familiar as SVN/Tortoise. Under the hood SVN is still simpler than GIT but the end user doesn't have to see this if they don't open the bonnet.
And despite reading up on this stuff, I'm still a bit hazy about what happens if 2 people DO upload the same file at the same time?Nobody will upload the same file at precisely the same second -someone will always be first. Once somebody has downloaded a copy of the file they will then potentially modify it in some way. Then the process is just before you upload your changes you pull the files down again and it will flag up if the file has changed since you modified it. This will then flag up as a conflict and you have various merge tools to resolve the differences. Once that is done you will be able to upload the modified file with the additional updates and it will include the modifications from both people.



If others want to create an alternative version of OpenTemplot with additional features that's great, but I feel it would be a project for them rather than me. I'm fully occupied with Templot2 and its missing docs, and trying to scale down my involvement rather than increase it.
I'm not sure this is about creating an alternative version of OpenTemplot but about management of the OpenTemplot project. Personally I would prefer to have one main OpenTemplot project for people to focus on. Being open source then people are perfectly entitled to take a copy and modify it as they wish. However rather than various splinter projects I would prefer the community to focus around one OpenTemplot project so we can all contribute to that one project. 


So this is in part a query as how you see this OpenTemplot project to be managed. There are various project management roles to be worked out, is this project going to use the bug reporting system, how are they prioritised, who decides what features are included in releases, is it a test release or a full release etc.


I appreciate you wish to scale back your involvement and leave an OpenTemplot project for the community to manage. However even open source projects require some level of management and co-ordination and drive. So if not your good self then how do divest these roles to the community?


Regards


Adrian 

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Adrian wrote:I'm not sure this is about creating an alternative version of OpenTemplot but about management of the OpenTemplot project. Personally I would prefer to have one main OpenTemplot project for people to focus on. Being open source then people are perfectly entitled to take a copy and modify it as they wish. However rather than various splinter projects I would prefer the community to focus around one OpenTemplot project so we can all contribute to that one project. 

So this is in part a query as how you see this OpenTemplot project to be managed. There are various project management roles to be worked out, is this project going to use the bug reporting system, how are they prioritised, who decides what features are included in releases, is it a test release or a full release etc.

I appreciate you wish to scale back your involvement and leave an OpenTemplot project for the community to manage. However even open source projects require some level of management and co-ordination and drive. So if not your good self then how do divest these roles to the community?Hi Adrian,

Thanks for that.

This is all getting a bit heavier than I had in mind for a fun hobby project. I was thinking that each interested contributor would make their own version of Templot, using whatever bits of code get posted on here and take their fancy. They might or might not then choose to post their finished JoeBloggsTemplot for anyone who likes the look of it. Over time no doubt one or two versions would gain in popularity and become the norm for general use, with contributions from others.

If we have one single OpenTemplot project, less experienced hobby programmers and coding beginners are going to feel nervous about posting changes to it, especially if it involves installing version control client software on their computer.

Also as you say, a single project requires someone to oversee it, and that definitely isn't going to be me.

In any event, at this stage we don't know who or how many folks are interested? The whole thing could turn into a 9-day wonder. 

cheers,

Martin.

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Martin Wynne wrote:
As far as I'm concerned, no-one is going to be required to do anything. If folks have some code ideas they want to contribute, they can be just as happily posted on here for discussion as anywhere else.


This isn't about requiring people to do anything, but just allowing people to contribute directly to the codebase if they wish to.

If the code is in a version control repository e.g. GIT. Then if they wish the users can download a copy of the latest version of the code and modify it. If they wish to contribute back they can upload their changes to the main project for others to test out. It then doesn't require you or whoever is maintaining the code to insert the updates, they can just be tested and included in the main development code base. This is one of the differences between SVN and GIT. In SVN you have to upload the changes to the main code repository before others can see it. GIT is a distributed system so if you want to get someone else to check your code changes you can send them the updates to include in their copy for testing prior to uploading it to the main code repository.

Personally I prefer Mercurial to GIT but they are much of the same and quite happy using either. However one of the most useful introductions to distributed version control system is this one for Mercurial. However being very similar then the same principles apply to GIT.

Mercurial tutorial

Regards

Adrian

   

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