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Re: [Dillo-dev] Dillo on Windows fork

by Robin Rowe

Jorge, That you have so many derogatory names for Windows doesn't make a Windows developer feel welcome. You went to a lot of trouble to mince point by point through my "attacks, FUD, and all the false assertions", but it was unnecessary. If it is what you feel, all you need say is that you welcome a native Windows port, that it was just a big misunderstanding. Either a native Windows port is welcome (that means no cygwin in case you don't understand), you want any patches I create for building Dillo as a Microsoft Visual C++ project, want to work together, and are happy to answer what technical points you can regardless of operating system I use -- or you don't. I am willing to admit that I have no idea what you are talking about in general. Your previous email, the one from last week that did not attempt to answer my technical questions about Dillo as it is implemented now, told me that "if you want to make dillo run on M$ Windoze natively, you're on your own", and pointed me for the reason to an article whose only reference to Windows is a rant against "Micro$oft (windoze)", could have led me to the wrong conclusion. All your talk today about having no Windows users currently, cygwin, posix, articles, attacks, FUD, false assertions, lies, the dark side (as you call running Dillo on Windows) and so forth only confuses things further. What do you really want me to do? Cheers, Robin --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin.Rowe(a)MovieEditor.com Hollywood, California www.CinePaint.org Free motion picture and still image editing software

Sept. 4, 2003

Re: [Dillo-dev] Dillo on Windows fork

by Jorge Arellano Cid

Hi there, Unfortunately, I find myself compelled to answer to Mr. Robin Rowe's attacks, FUD, and all the false assertions he did about myself. Although I knew very few people would take the time to read the interview and then compare it to what Mr. Rowe says I said, I expected, from the long time you know me on this list, not to beleive his attacks without a hesitation. I'll make quotes and comment them. Please make your own comparisons and decide. Of course, you can browse the mailing list archives for the full threads: http://news.gmane.org/thread.php?group=gmane.comp.web.dillo.devel (search for September 2003) -- I'm quoting my missing emails, in full, here. Once I read that the only way to stop FUD was to rebate it point by point, so here I go: > Now, if you want to make dillo run on M$ Windoze natively, > you're on your own. Some of the reasons may be found in the > interview page: > > http://www.dillo.org/interview.html > > Thanks for the link. Very interesting. You sound quite hostile to Windows > users as a matter of personal politics. Please go to the interview and read it. If not at least search for these keywords: "windo" and "user". > May I ask, what does a policy of denying Dillo technical support to Windows > users accomplish? Unless using CYGWIN we have no Windows users because there's not a working native port yet. How can I be blamed for not supporting non-existent users? > Do you intend to prevent people from using software they > have already paid for anyway? _Ridiculous_. How can I prevent all (or some) of the windows users using their OS of choice. Mr. Rowe puts me as if I was trying to actively deny these people the right to use their SW. How? Turning off theiy machines from my house? Has anyone ever read such an statement from me in this mailing list? I read it again and again and can't understand why I'm bashed this way. > Should I throw away my copy of Windows 2000 to > accommodate your political views? Please, please, read the interview and search for such an statement. Incredible, Mr. Rowe keeps inventing implicit assertions, and then charging them on me. I've never said that. You can chose whatever OS you want. I'm only the project leader of a Free-SW project that aims for POSIX compliance. I even suggested him to try the recipe Kelson prepared about running dillo on Windows with CIGWIN. (http://www.hyperborea.org/software/dillo/cygwin.html) > To what point? I don't know, it was Mr. Rowe who invented this false accusation and blamed me for it. > You can't think it could > hurt Microsoft. And he suggests what I think too! Amazing. > You must know they aren't going to give me a refund. Please search for the keyword "refund" in the interview. You will not find it. It is just another invention that I'm accused for by Mr. Rowe. > If you change your mind and decide to answer my questions about what a few > troublesome pieces of Dillo code are intended to do that would be nice. Gentle words after the bashing. (this can confuse the careless reader, and make him think he's going through valid statements.) > But, if you prefer not to it is no big deal. Interesting. Then why did he take the time to prepare a set of false statements to attack me? > I've ported much more difficult > programs without help. To some extent, this is a compliment (I believe in Raph Levien's words that "SW design is a constant struggle against complexity"), but frankly I think his intention wasn't that. ...and as if this wasn't material enough, here are some other quotes from the next emails he sent: > In response to my request for technical information about Dillo to make it > easier for me to debug the Windows port, Jorge sent me an email off-list > last week in which he told me, "you're on your own" and directed me to > his interview at http://www.dillo.org/interview.html for the reason why. > What Jorge says there is he is opposed to supporting Windows users as a > matter of personal politics. Another lie! He says: "Jorge says there is he is opposed to supporting Windows users as a matter of personal politics". Here's my email: <q> On Thu, 28 Aug 2003, Robin Rowe wrote: > Jorge, > > I have Dillo built now as a native Windows VC++ 6 project and am debugging > it. Seems to be my unstable 1.14 version of GTK for Windows that is causing > Dillo to hang on load. By the way, I'm the new GTK1 for Windows maintainer. > Tor and GIMP for Windows are moving to GTK2, but CinePaint is staying with > GTK1. > > Can we talk about Dillo design portability a bit? Dillo is designed to run on POSIX compatible systems. If CYGWIN provides that, let it be (as stated in Kelson's doc). Now, if you want to make dillo run on M$ Windoze natively, you're on your own. Some of the reasons may be found in the interview page: http://www.dillo.org/interview.html (search for "windows", is quite a large text). Cheers Jorge.- </q> ------------------------------------- and here's my previous answer to him: ------------------------------------- <q> On Tue, 26 Aug 2003, Robin Rowe wrote: > Hi. I'm the project leader for CinePaint, an open source paint program used > mainly by the motion picture industry. Our code was branched from GIMP in > 1998. Hi! Yes, I knew about your project by the time we were applying to LinuxFund... > > How would the Dillo project feel about Dillo being embedded in another > application as a help browser? Very good. In fact it has been done in the past with the Sylpheed-claws email client: it embeds dillo for secure HTML mail viewing. In fact we're working in a remote control plugin for dillo to allow better support for this kind of functionality. Currently applications can launch Dillo and let the user navigate the help docs without problems. Now, if the app. wants to provide context sensitive help, it needs to end dillo and launch another instance to make it display the required page (quite fast, but not optimal), and here's where we're improving it. > We're looking for a new help system browser and considering Dillo. We are > impressed how compact your implementation is. We only need a limited set of > HTML features: links, images, tables, bullet lists, number lists, headings, > ordinary text, bold, and italic. In these features we need the browser to be > absolutely stable. Any issues there? None! You'll hardly find a browser that's more stable. And for any issue that may arise, you can email us back for support. > > We support all platforms, including Windows. One of the first things I would > intend to do is port Dillo to Windows. I saw in your archives that you had > made some effort in that direction, but it seemed to peter out. What are the > problems? If you need dillo to run on the dark side, take a look at: http://www.hyperborea.org/software/dillo/cygwin.html Cheers Jorge.- </q> ----------- Now, please excuse me if I don't want to answer any other email from Mr. Robin Rowe. I refuse to answer to Mr. Rowe because he has not the minimal manners to communicate politely and objectively (at least with me), and he attacks me upon false statements. ----------- Now, onto the technical reasons why I decided to aim dillo for POSIX and not for Windows (the use of advanced features of POSIX is a fact documented in a paper I wrote the year 2000). From Dillo project objectives perspective: The project objectives are: * The democratization of Internet information access. * Security and personal privacy. * High software efficiency. 1.- The democratization of Internet information access. Windows requires a modern machine to run (at least supported versions of it), and the pay of a licence fee. People with such a HW/SW configuration already have the means to afford their internet access. Now considering what happened to Netscape when trying to run on Windiws platforms it was quite clear there was no much future on that line. 2.- Security and personal privacy. Definitively a hard conflict with the windows platforms. A lot has been written about this topic, but let me suggest: http://www.hevanet.com/peace/microsoft.htm 3.- High software efficiency. A carefully crafted browser, with every single bit of speed we could think of, running over a bloated monster that makes modern computers feel slow? Now, as a tiny client for help documents, it may be, but Explorer is already loaded so... If someone someday makes dillo run on windows, I'll ask him to warn the users that they don't have the Security and personal privacy the original Dillo strives for (one of the best ways to spy any browser is to do in the internal firewall. You have all the HTTP traffic, the user IDs, etc.) Judge yourselves, I've had enough of it. Sincerely Jorge.-

Sept. 4, 2003

Re: [Dillo-dev] Dillo on Windows fork

by Melvin Hadasht

[Please, let's keep this discussion on the ML] Hi, > > If someone wants to port Dillo to Windows, he > > can look at how Sylpheed-Claws I/O infrastructure was ported to Windows. > > Sylpheed-Claws does not use pthreads, but it forks... > > Windows doesn't fork. That can be emulated with spawn. Threads is a better > approach. I don't know how he did that, but I remember those two parts (IO and forking) were the first things that needed to be ported to Windows. My message wasn't aimed at discussing technical points (I never programmed in Windows), but rather to point to some light-weight gtk 1.2 project that was already successfully ported to Windows, so less experienced developers could take a look on it. > > I think, if someone does not already have the experience of > > porting to Windows.... > > I ported CinePaint to Windows, the largest GTK project ever ported aside > from GIMP. Then disregard my email, it will not help you :). I thought someone was in need of technical help for porting to Windows, so I posted some hints in the case where the poster was not so experienced. > >...looking at Claws versions can be very helpful, as our port > > is done by a very knowledgeable guy. > > Cool, who was that? Just google for Sylpheed-Claws & win32 :) -- Melvin Hadasht

Sept. 4, 2003

Re: [Dillo-dev] Dillo on Windows fork

by Robin Rowe

Kelson, > From where I'm sitting, it looks like you've been *very* welcome here, > with one exception. > > Have people been sending you hate mail off-list? Or had you made up your > mind before you posted your question? Nobody has expressed any hostility. Some are discriminatory, but as someone pointed out the GPL doesn't say you can't discriminate against Windows users. Once the Dillo project leader says Windows is unwanted here there is no reasonable choice for me as the Windows port developer but to go elsewhere. I'm trying to do as the project leader says he wishes. Are you saying Jorge isn't the project leader? That I shouldn't respect his wishes? What I wanted to do was donate the Windows port. I had no idea that would be made difficult. Cheers, Robin --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin.Rowe(a)MovieEditor.com Hollywood, California www.CinePaint.org Free motion picture and still image editing software

Sept. 3, 2003

Re: [Dillo-dev] Dillo on Windows fork

by Kelson Vibber

At 02:06 PM 9/3/2003, Robin Rowe wrote: >It seems clear that I must take Dillo for Windows elsewhere, that opinions >are too firmly set for Windows users to feel welcome here soon. OK... I've seen four replies to your question (not counting Jorge's). Three of them basically say, "Yes, let's port to Windows!" One simply states that nothing forces Jorge to support it and offers no opinion on porting one way or the other. Additionally, several people replied to your earlier technical questions to the list, and several people expressed interest in your progress. From where I'm sitting, it looks like you've been *very* welcome here, with one exception. Have people been sending you hate mail off-list? Or had you made up your mind before you posted your question? Kelson Vibber www.hyperborea.org

Sept. 3, 2003

Re: [Dillo-dev] Dillo on Windows fork

by Melvin Hadasht

Hi, > That does not necessarily mean the project has to be forked, only that > someone needs to be willing to maintain the Windows code - by which I mean > (at the very least) following the development process and making sure that > changes don't break Windows compatibility. Otherwise we'll end up with the > same situation that killed Classic Mac OS support on Mozilla. AFAIK, the port of Sylpheed-Claws to Windows uses gtk 1.3.x (which is closer to gtk 2.x than to gtk 1.2.x). If someone wants to port Dillo to Windows, he can look at how Sylpheed-Claws I/O infrastructure was ported to Windows. Sylpheed-Claws does not use pthreads, but it forks to access to POP3 mailboxes, as Dillo forks to do DNS lookups, IIRC. We have a CVS branch for the Windows port. I think, if someone does not already have the experience of porting to Windows, looking at Claws versions can be very helpful, as our port is done by a very knowledgeable guy. -- Melvin Hadasht

Sept. 3, 2003

RE: [Dillo-dev] Dillo on Windows fork

by Eric Gaudet

> Kelson, > > > If Jorge does not want to work on a Windows port, that's up > > to him.... > > That does not necessarily mean the project has to be forked.... > ... > It seems clear that I must take Dillo for Windows elsewhere, > that opinions are too firmly set for Windows users to feel > welcome here soon. It isn't a problem to put my version on > SourceForge. Does anyone here want to get involved now or > shall I go it alone? > That's the beauty fo the GPL: even if the developers of Dillo don't want to help with a feature, a port, you can still do it. And if you end-up adding interesting stuff, Dillo can even get it back! ... > Should I choose a new name for the Dillo fork on SourceForge? > It's not required, AFAIK. The only requirement is to release the sources under the GPL with any release you do. Regarding the need for a windows port, I don't quite see who would need such a thing (besides you, obviously). Windows has phoenix, which is lightweight enough when the OS itself need a big machine only to boot. As for running old versions of windows on a small machine, it really is ludicrous. Running an OS that's unsupported, crash-prone and hopelessly outdated like W9x sounds like a bad idea. This kind of machine is a perfect target for a small linux. Good luck anyway. Eric

Sept. 3, 2003

Re: [Dillo-dev] Dillo on Windows fork

by Robin Rowe

Kelson, > If Jorge does not want to work on a Windows port, that's up to him.... > That does not necessarily mean the project has to be forked.... No one has asked Jorge to work on the Windows port. My request was for technical information about the *Linux* implementation of Dillo. Jorge won't answer my Linux questions. He chooses not to help even indirectly, because I would use that information to work on Windows. > Maybe it'll take time for the changes to work their way into the main > branch. Who knows? Does it matter? It seems clear that I must take Dillo for Windows elsewhere, that opinions are too firmly set for Windows users to feel welcome here soon. It isn't a problem to put my version on SourceForge. Does anyone here want to get involved now or shall I go it alone? Jorge, what should be done about the Dillo name? CinePaint used to be called Film Gimp, a name inherited from an abandoned branch of GIMP that at one time was expected to be the next GIMP. Confusion with the GIMP project prompted our name change. Film Gimp users would sometimes wander into the GIMP list causing annoyance and confusion. Any Dillo for Windows users who come to this Dillo list expecting to be welcomed and supported will be wasting everyone's time. Should I choose a new name for the Dillo fork on SourceForge? Thanks, Robin --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin.Rowe(a)MovieEditor.com Hollywood, California www.CinePaint.org Free motion picture and still image editing software

Sept. 3, 2003

Re: [Dillo-dev] Dillo on Windows fork

by Kelson Vibber

Personally, I think that Windows compatibility could be beneficial for Dillo. If the goal is to make the Internet more widely available on less-expensive (in other words, older) hardware, it seems to me that making Dillo available on the large number of old Win9x systems would help. Recently, my brother picked up a cheap PCMCIA network card, dragged my parents' decade-old laptop off the shelf, and plugged it into their home LAN. This system is old enough that we installed Windows 95 on it when the OS was new. At one point, my brother turned to me and asked if I knew of a good web browser to run on a really old system. I said, "Well, if this were Linux, I'd recommend Dillo, but..." We ended up installing Opera, which still took about a minute to start up, but ran reasonably well afterward. Of course, there is the matter of developer interest. If Jorge does not want to work on a Windows port, that's up to him. This is free software, after all! As I understand it, he has expressed no objection to the existence of a port, but he does not want to be involved in the process. That does not necessarily mean the project has to be forked, only that someone needs to be willing to maintain the Windows code - by which I mean (at the very least) following the development process and making sure that changes don't break Windows compatibility. Otherwise we'll end up with the same situation that killed Classic Mac OS support on Mozilla. Maybe it'll take time for the changes to work their way into the main branch. The code to embed Dillo in Sylpheed, for instance, was a series of patches for a long time before it was added, and the tabs/frames patch (or parts of it) will probably follow the same path. The same thing could happen with the Windows port. Kelson Vibber www.hyperborea.org

Sept. 3, 2003

Re: [Dillo-dev] Dillo on Windows fork

by Tom Lisjac

On Wed, 2003-09-03 at 09:34, Colin Michael Yates wrote: > Given that Linux is about choice... Yes, Linux and open source development is very much about choice... and one them is how a developer chooses to spend his or her time. It's hard work to build a project like this, but the reward is doing something that the creator believes is worthwhile. Nobody is being paid... so this doesn't need to conform to anyone else's idea of what "worthwhile" is. The GPL allows the code to be modified by anyone who chooses to... but it doesn't require the author to do work that he doesn't enjoy doing. > Fair enough having a personal agenda, but enforcing it on others (i.e. > being hostile) isn't really on. Hostility and indifference are two very different things. I haven't seen any hostility on this list... yet. Best regards, -Tom

Sept. 3, 2003