yade-dev team mailing list archive

[Janek Kozicki <cosurgi@xxxxxxxxx>]

This is a reply from the author of wm3. I'm forwarding it here.


Begin forwarded message:

Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 08:22:17 -0700
From: "Dave Eberly" <deberly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Janek Kozicki" <cosurgi@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: problem with wm3


Hello Janek.

> The task will not be repetative, if, done once, will be accepted by
> upstream (the author of wm3). Will he accept it? He is currently
> working on wm4, not wm3.
> 
> And also, we risk using a library that is no longer maintained.
> For example: we are not receiving bug fixes from upstream, because
> the wm3 author is currently actively maintaining wm4 (which we cannot
> use due to license problems).

I have made Wild Magic 4.x also LGPL and will no longer
maintain Wild Magic 3.x.  I am also not interested in spending
time repackaging my source code for various distributions.  I
barely have enough free time just to keep up with the technical
support.

> - installing yade on non-debian derived system is currently very
> difficult, due to lack of wm3 package for that linux distribution.
> And making this package is difficult even for the people who are
> *experts* in making packages for linux distributions.
> 
> - a common user who knows nothing about linux internals is at risk of
> breaking his linux installation, when he tries to install wm3 (not
> from a package, but from tarball), just to get yade running.

Is it not amazing how much time is spent on packaging and
environment issues?  Why not just redistribute Wild Magic
"as is" and let users deal with their own environments.  Not
everything has to be "bullet proof".

> We are on shifting sands ground. Something must be done with it.
> Possible solutions:
> 
> 1. someone takes over the maintience of wm3. First he makes a
> package-friendly version of wm3. Then later accepts the bug reports,
> fixes them, and generally actively maintains the library. Artur
> cannot do this task. He can only package this library, but not
> actively maintain it!
> 
> 2. wm3 is LGPL now, so we can do as it was done before - take a part
> of it and include into yade (as a separate yade-package). It will be
> legal solution, but not a clean solution. Vaclav hated it so much,
> that one of the first things he did, was to remove wm3 from yade tree.

I do not know what yade is, but if it is that difficult
to package a bunch of source code, why bother?  I have
taken the Linux distribution and, with minimal effort, modified
the make files to run on a PC with MINGW or CYGWIN, on a
Macintosh OS X, and on an SGI O2.

> 3. switch to another library, like http://www.vtk.org/ or
> http://www.openscenegraph.org/ or maybe something else. But after wm3
> author already decided to use LGPL, this would be a sad decision...

I have no emotions about your deciding to use a different
package.  It makes no difference to me whether or not
people use my software.  I would hope they choose to use
it because of its functionality for 3D graphics.  If they choose
not to use it because of packaging issues, then the packaging
process itself is the problem.

> 4. the author of wm3 will declare that he plans to actively maintain
> the wm3 library. Receive bug-reports from the users, and fix the
> bugs. And first thing that he will do, is to accept a
> package-friendly version of wm3, which in this case Artur can prepare.

I have changed my mind about supporting Wild Magic 3.  I sold
my company and now work for a startup game company.  I do
not have the time to maintain WM3.x and WM4.x.  Now it is only
WM4.x.

> One of the first bugs to handle in wm3 is to compile it on 64bit
> platform, because there arises a problem with int64 type, which
> causes compilation failure. Artur was able to "force" a succesfull
> compilation, but had no any method to tell whether the compiled
> version would perform correctly the calculations.

If I had a 64-bit Linux box, I would test it.  The code does compile
and run on my 64-bit Macintosh, but as we all know, each platform
has its quirks, so this is no guarantee that it will run on any other
64-bit platform.

I am sorry that you have so many problems to deal with regarding
my software.  The faster path for you is simply not to include it
in your Linux distribution.  People can always download it from my
web site and make any minor changes for their own environment.
I find this much simpler than dealing with all the packaging issues.

One of these days I look forward to receiving technical support
and other email that are actually about 3D graphics rather than
about development/environment issues...

--
Dave Eberly
http://www.geometrictools.com




-- 
# Janek Kozicki
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