Re: [PATCH] gnu: Add pybitmessage, [PATCH] gnu: Add python2-pyqt-4, [PAT

[Peter Šurda]

Hello,

On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 05:53:05PM +0000, ng0 wrote:
> I'm not sure if this discussion is too offtopic for the guix-devel
> mailinglist. If anyone thinks it is, please respond.
I think my emails are moderated anyway because I'm not on the list, so
I'll leave the decision up to the moderator.

> Interesting, how did you achieve the redirection to .onion? Is the what I guess
> to be javascript available publicly somewhere?
I use mod_rewrite to extract the client IP from the cloudflare headers,
match it against a list of tor exit nodes and conditionally redirect it
to the onion address. Then I have a cron job that updates the tor exit
node list from the tor-project website. No javascript.

> I think this approach is wrong, or we fail to communicate directly.  If
> you want to compile PyBitmessage from source on Guix. there is a "guix
> package" function for that (refer to the Guix documentation, invoking
> guix package). For the target group 'novice users' you made, a simple
> 'guix package -i pybitmessage' will do it.  You can instruct this to be
> run entirely without binary substitutes.
This is a valid point, having a package is the logical next step.
However that requires me to research how guix packaging works, test and
debug it. And there may be other prequisites for building that I'm not
aware of yet. I don't see that as a productive use of my time. Someone
who already understands how it works however can probably easily get the
list of dependencies from the wiki and create the package in a couple of
minutes. I already have to make sure that there are building
instructions that work for at least 4 other distros, 32bit and 64bit
windows (different), osx, freebsd and openbsd.

> The tests for this package run on our infrastructure, so failing builds
> will be picked up for multiple architectures.
Great. I want to increase the level of automated testing for
pybitmessage as well, that's one of the reasons why I have the new
server.

> I'm not sure wether this page addresses developers or users (that's the
> only distinction I would make as documentation and interest of those
> differs).
Again that's a good point. I would prefer if people with specialisations
contributed to the project instead of me having to learn and do
everything. So I'm trying to reduce the hurdles for developers to
contribute. And maybe someone who specialises in technical writing can
update the wiki.

> My criticism and suggestions were prior to this situation, but thanks
> for explaining to me why it has never really been picked up.
I appreciate your criticism, there was indeed a time in the past where
the project stagnated because basically noone had time, so I decided to
dedicate all my energy to it and I work on it full time now. I hope the
developer community gradually improves.

> Okay, sounds reasonable. Last year I explained why I'm not really happy
> with PyQt4 and why I think depending on Windows XP is a mistake. PyQt5
> is available for Windows XP, in case that's the blocker someone failed
> to see.
At least from my point of view XP compatibility is not the reason for
postponing a move to PyQt5.

--
Peter Šurda
Bitmessage core developer