lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>>> So, what is missing for having a stable release of pcmanfm ? Any
>>>> major features are still missing ?

On 06/13/2011 10:12 AM, PCMan wrote:

> https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=156956&atid=801864


> I give the bugs different priority. The ones with highest priority
> should be fixed before 0.9.9, I think. Please see if you can help.


> Personally I will take this one:
> https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3094303&group_id=156956&atid=801864
> This is my bottom line. At least this one should be fixed before 0.9.9.


An interesting choice of #1 bug.  I'd think that any "kills the app"
bugs should perhaps have higher priority than a missing drag and drop
bookmarking feature?  So, if it can be reproduced in current code, I'd
suggest that

> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3131504&group_id=156956&atid=801864


might need addressing fairly urgently?

COPYRIGHT/LICENSING:

In packaging from the pcmanfm git head, since we don't have a 0.9.9~rc1
tarball to work from, I found a few minor copyright-related or
license-related issues that it would be good to get tidied up before a
tarball release, if possible:

(1) Copyright statements generally say 2009-2010, and it is now 2011.

(2) The translatable one that shows in the About dialog box also does
this, so this may be annoying to fix, because it will need matching
fixes in every translation file!

(3) A couple of source files seem to lack a copyright and licence statement:

  src/xml-purge.c: *No copyright* UNKNOWN
  autogen.sh: *No copyright* UNKNOWN

I realize autogen.sh is just a short script, but technically it is
source code in the application source tree, so it should be treated like
all other source code files as far as copyright and licensing go.

(4) One has a rather different copyright, and a license statement that
needs fixing:

  src/gseal-gtk-compat.h: LGPL (with incorrect FSF address)

However the only COPYRIGHT file in the source tree is the GPLv2 one, not
an LGPL one.  Also, this file is not mentioned in debian/copyright as
having different authorship or license from the rest of the sources.
(This may be a packaging bug at least as much as an upstream application
source bug!)

BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY:

As Julien mentioned, a libfm SONAME version bump seems to be needed.
Some symbols are now missing that were present in earlier library
versions, so (as I understand it) backward compatibility with those
versions of the library has now been lost.

AUTOMATED PACKAGE BUILDS:

Earlier, I wrote:

>> Since some testers seem to need packaged versions to test, I'll 
>> look at creating a test unofficial package from git for them, so
>> we get slightly more testing.


I have made good progress with this, and expect there will be test
packages automatically showing up in my ppa:jmarsden/lubuntu in a few
hours, for both libfm and pcmanfm.  We can decide where we really want
such automatically generated test packages to go once it actually works
-- maybe there is already an appropriate pcmanfm or LXDE PPA for this?

My work so far on recipes for doing this is at:

  https://code.launchpad.net/~jmarsden/+recipe/libfm-daily
  https://code.launchpad.net/~jmarsden/+recipe/pcmanfm-daily

Packages built this way locally on my own PC (as opposed to being built
automatically on Canonical-managed build machines) work for me, at least
in my limited testing so far, in an Lubuntu 11.04 virtual machine.

IMPROVING TEST COVERAGE:

One more thought about increased test coverage, since you mentioned you
are wary of releasing code that is buggy: currently both the libfm and
pcmanfm packages disable the test suites... fixing things so the test
suites work, so we can enable them at package build time, would be a
helpful way to minimize regression bugs.  I have not looked at this in
any depth -- do we have any sense of how much work it will be to get the
current test suites for libfm and pcmanfm to the point that the current
(git head) code passes them?

Thanks,

Jonathan