Re: Swarm on MacOSX

[Alex Lancaster]

>>>>> "W" == W Northcott <address@hidden> writes:

W> OK I'm putting my hand up.  It seems to me that this thing should
W> now be doable.  So let's get it done.  First I am no great shakes
W> as a programmer.  Hence I am not volunteering to do serious code
W> hacking.  However, I am prepared to do documentation and
W> coordination work.

[...]

Bill,

Thanks for volunteering!

Now that we are a purely volunteer-based project (we have no paid
staff at this time), it's time to make good on this notion of a truly
community-led effort, and I'm pleased that you are stepping up to the
bat to take the lead on this.

W> How to move forward: 1.  Make full information on how to build gcc3
W> and the other components easily available so that new participants
W> can get started more easily.  2.  Maintain a depository of Swarm
W> code containing the patches to date which can be accessed by anyone
W> willing to help.  3.  Concentrate on getting the Swarm code to
W> compile against the existing UNIX/XFree style libraries.  4.  Once
W> it compiles testing can start and bugs be nailed.  At some point
W> during this step the code becomes useful and might hopefully be
W> incorporated in standard Swarm snapshots.  5.  At some advanced
W> stage in the previous step, start work on a PB project to compile
W> Swarm as a framework.  5a.  Compile hdf5 as a framework - this one
W> looks quite simple.  6.  Review the Tcl/Tk progress.  There might
W> be some point in building an Aqua Tcl/Tk 8.3 framework so that BLT
W> can be built without waiting for its authors to update to 8.4.  7.
W> Enjoy (No really)

W> Next a few Questions: What is the intended function of the Swarm
W> site on savannah.gnu.org?  

It's intended the central point for the community to help continue
develop and extend Swarm.  The current Swarm source is in CVS, and I
will be gradually moving over other applications (such as swarmapps
and jtutorial, jheatbugs etc.) and the website source from their
current location on the SFI cvs server, so that Savannah will be the
central point through which we can continue to co-ordinate the
development of Swarm and help recruit new developers into the fold.

Savannah also has all the bug tracking, task and patch management
facilities that exist in open-source sites like SourceForge (in fact
it's a branch of SourceForge) and we would really like these to be
used as the main vehicle through which we manage the project (and
subprojects like the MacOS X port), fix bugs and so on...

W> Is the cvs there intended to be current?  If so, would it be
W> possible to make a cvs branch for MacOS X so that the current OS X
W> code would always be available there?  Culd we use the Savannah
W> facilities to run this project?

Absolutely!  Please!! That's what it's there for.  In fact I'm right
in the middle of updating the website and sending a mail out to the
user community about our Savannah project site, which has been
functional for while, but hasn't been "officially" announced as such,
before (we will also be shutting down our old site at SourceForge and
migrating everything to Savannah).  The link to our site, for those
who haven't visited it yet, is:

 http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/swarm/

Yes, the CVS is the 100% complete current version that we are using
for internal development (migrated from our old SFI CVS server).  You
can checkout the code anonymously.  Ideally we would merge any changes
back into the CVS repository directly, without doing a branch, but if
it's necessary, doing a CVS branch is possible (ultimately we would
want to merge everything back into the main trunk, so we wouldn't have
two sets of codebases, various autoconf and automake magic can be used
to enable/disable any MacOS X-specific code as required).

Initially it would be best if any changes were reported as patches
against the current CVS tree via the Patch Manager:

 http://savannah.gnu.org/patch/?group=swarm

then once we've got some momentum going, and folks are comfortable
with seeing how the source fits together and/or modifying the source
(if required), then we can start having users modifying CVS directly
(there's a fair learning curve with getting the build process from CVS
working and/or writing ChangeLog entries, testing the fixes etc).

I've gone ahead and created a new task "MacOS X port" at:

 
http://savannah.gnu.org/pm/task.php?group_project_id=495&group_id=1837&func=browse

which you can use to co-ordinate the various tasks required for the
port.  In order to be able to add and/or update tasks, you'll need to
register with savannah:

 http://savannah.gnu.org/account/register.php

and then I can add you to the Swarm project as developer, after which
time you can add and update tasks.

W> Comments, objections, improvements please.

If you are seriously interested in being involved in this port and/or
getting involved directly with Swarm development, please register with
Savannah.

Alex
-- 
  Alex Lancaster           |  e-mail: address@hidden
  Swarm Development Group  |     web: http://www.swarm.org
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