[Kde-windows] general question about win32 port

[Jarosław Staniek]

Ralf Habacker said the following, On 2005-10-26 23:57:

> currently there are some people working on the bksys build system for a win32 
> port of KDE. 

Just my 2 eurocents:

I must be ugly here and mentione this again: I only think about port of 
kdelibs and some other libraries. Thus, IMO this is mostly offer for 
developers. If so, end-users will look at the project as a (sub)set of KDE 
applications, not as a replacement for their desktop.

Sorry if this is obvious; Ralf knows this position well, but if anybody wanted 
to see some more explanation, see here: 
http://wiki.kdenews.org/tiki-index.php?page=KDElibs+for+win32

 > I'm working personally on the mingw port using the official qt4
> gpled port for windows. Others are working on an MS Visual C++ port using the 
> QT4 extension from qtwin.sf.net.  
> 
> In the past a win32 port was discussed very controversial (I remember a long 
> blog thread of Aaron Seigo, a zdnet.uk interview I had and several other 
> threads). In  the last time i see more and more, that people and companies 
> like this idea (as for example Aaron has reported) .
> 
> Because this port enters a new level for KDE, I (and probably other) like to 
> be prepared best for this way in legal and other issues. 
> 
> Relating to this I have some question: 
> 
> 1. what the KDE people think about the state the win32 port has 
> 	- full integrated into the present kde community protected by the KDE e.V.   

We're not talking about fork, so this is reasonable choice, right?... The code 
is in the same source tree since 2004.
OTOH, Legal issues could be something to think about within KDE e.V....

> 	- partial integrated (topics has to be defined)
> 	- not integrated, full independent project without any support and/or
> 	  relation in any way 

This could be a bit damaging for KDE (also as a brand), because of lack of 
consistency.

> depending on topic 1, there are additional topics:
> 
> 2. where to place public informations about this port (like porting state, 
> how-tos and so on)
> 	- integrated into KDE website 

Integration with kde.org (without "polluting" by very-win32-specific content) 
looks reasonable to me.

> 	- separate website like www.kdelibs.com or kde-windows.sf.net or so 

(Note: kdelibs.com is my effort, highlighting developemnt platform advantages, 
devoted to solutions built on top of it, and so on). There're many KDE-related 
(or partially related) web sites so having some more couldn't harm. The point 
could be that there shouldn't be many concurrent "official" sites.

> 3. using kde bug reporting system (I remember for kde-cygwin people sends bug 
> to the kde bug system and got mainly negative feedback) 
> 	- possible 
> 	- better use a separate bugtracking system 

All depends how accurate are our reporters. It's equally wrong when somebody 
forgot to mention she/he is running into troubles with KDE app on *BSD and not 
on Linux _as_ with KDE app on win32 and not Linux.
Can we expect win32 users will waste KDE bug buster's time by reporting 
duplicates or nonsenses? Maybe. But also maybe these users have more 
interesting things to do.

> 4. where to place download area 
> 	- main kde mirrors 

That's natural. What should we separate?

-- 
regards / pozdrawiam,
  Jaroslaw Staniek / OpenOffice Polska
  Kexi Developer:
      http://www.kexi-project.org | http://koffice.org/kexi
  KDE3, KDE4 libraries for developing MS Windows applications:
      http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=KDElibs+for+win32