[Kstars-devel] Addons

[Akarsh Simha]

Hi Keith

> Next version of KStars, just put ALL the add ons into the progam by so that
> they don't have to be downloaded. After all KStars isn't that big a
> programto begin with.

Sorry that this has been a frustrating experience, especially with the  
NOMAD download.

What you suggest is not very straightforward for a few reasons:
1. Not all the add-ons are licensed permissively. For example, the  
Steinicke NGC/IC catalog cannot be used for commercial purposes. Thus,  
we cannot bundle it along with the GPL-licensed KStars

2. Tycho-2 and USNO NOMAD are somewhat large. I don't think it would  
be a good idea to force everyone to install both, especially the USNO  
NOMAD catalog (2.1GB!).

But the installation can be made easier if the additional data is  
packaged separately -- this is something that package maintainers  
should be encouraged to do, as they are the ones who provide the  
packages. Please file a bug report against the package from your Linux  
distribution, on your distribution's bugzilla. Some distributions have  
featured an additional kstars-data package that you can straight-away  
install.

Hopefully, the Windows installer will also come with such customizations.
/me stares at Nicolás.

Regards
Akarsh