[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Wanted: Maintainer for Konstruct
From:       Philippe Rigault <prigault () oricom ! ca>
Date:       2007-03-27 14:23:38
Message-ID: 200703271023.39096.prigault () oricom ! ca
[Download RAW message or body]

On Tuesday 27 March 2007 08:06:21 Stephan Binner wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm obviously missing time and motivation to update the versions installed
> by Konstruct between the KDE releases, to hunt/track problems on distros
> I'm not using/familiar with and not even thinking about, extending it.
>
> Is anyone interested in continuing Konstruct (for KDE3 at least)? :-)
>
> Bye,
>    Steve

Hello Steve,

First, let me thank you for maintaining Konstruct so well until now, I have 
found it extermely useful in all my work.

I am certainly interested in helping Konstruct not only stay afloat, but 
evolve with KDE4 and towards a better build system. I am not yet very 
familiar with cmake, but I anticipate that certain non-kde parts of Konstruct 
will have to maintain compatibility with GNU auto* tools for a while, so 
Konstruct for KDE4 will likely be a hybrid cmake/GNU-tools, right ?

One of the areas where Konstruct could be improved in my opinion is through a 
better integration with distros. What I mean by that is that building KDE 
from sources should not necessarily require building all its dependencies 
from sources as well, especially when those exist in an up-to-date version 
within the distro. I find that for RedHat/Fedora, a lot of things have 
improved during last three years concerning the packages provided by the 
distro, and it is now possible to use many KDE prerequisites (glib, lcms, 
imageMagick, openEXR, etc.) directly, so I now always end up modifying 
Konstruct Makefiles dependencies lists. 
This scheme could be achieved by having scripts + config-files that build the 
list of dependencies in a distro-specific way. that would be a first pass 
(pre-building KDE) that asks the user if he wants to:
 - use the distro's version (install it if necessary)
 - build its own version within konstruct

I would like to hear other people's suggestions about where Konstruct should 
be headed.

Finally, what about ressources and commitment ? So far, I have used and 
contributed to Konstruct (up-to 3.5.6) mostly by myself as my work allowed, 
and only on Fedora x86_64 (i386 also, with less emphasis), deploying it 
locally in the company or university lab I was in, but I got more and more 
busy with other things. I may be in a position to commit substancially more 
ressources to Konstruct and KDE in the near future (in 3-6 months), including 
hiring a full-time KDE developper in the group I lead, to both develop KDE 
bioinformatics applications as well as working on KDE4 and packaging. And I 
would be able to run konstruct on Fedora, Debian and Gentoo. If that plan 
goes through, then I surely could take on Konstruct. I can't commit to this 
today though.

Best regards,

-- 
Philippe Rigault
Bioinformatics Director
Centre de Génomique de Québec
Centre de Recherche du CHUL, Université Laval
2795, Boul.Laurier, Bureau 250
Québec, QC, G1V 4M7
courriel: Philippe.Rigault@genome.ulaval.ca
 
>> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe <<

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]