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List:       kde-mac
Subject:    Re: Install presence
From:       René_J.V. Bertin <rjvbertin () gmail ! com>
Date:       2021-06-19 10:13:14
Message-ID: 232032487.eUcLsG5adP () bola
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On Saturday June 19 2021 11:54:08 Ian Wadham wrote:
> > Regarding mac, it's the platform I'm the least familiar with. My
> > impression is that it's better that it's not populated at all than
> > having every project feel half-baked there.

If you don't hand-tailor applications and do not patch Qt, half-baked might be more \
than you'd get, on Mac; for instance, applications would lack all icons that aren't \
embedded, and will probably not find their runtime resources because those will be \
installed into the wrong standard locations. Aleix may know this from his work on \
KDevelop.


FWIW, I created a Phab. task once about patching the ECM so that Mac builds should \
work a bit better but can still opt to use the standard Unixy way of building (= like \
they are now, for use with patched Qt or simply with a hand-tailored build systems). \
I think that simply went forgotten without ever attracting any attention. Idem for \
questions I've posted on the frameworks devel ML since probably a bit before that \
already; it's as if people have moved on to whipping other cats (oooohhh ... KDE on \
mobile...??).

> > We might need someone who
> > cares to push through. But we also need to know it's worth the effort.

Be prepared to pay such a person, or (in case of MacPorts) to "bribe" the powers that \
be so that s/he at least gets commit access to the official ports tree repository in \
order to avoid having to fuss and/or being tarpitted. (I get the impression that HB \
is even fussier about accepting new entries but IIRC they already have the KF5 \
frameworks.)

> René, Marko Kaening and I were able to get the KDE 4 apps running much better, but \
> had no way to advertise the fact to users.

Other than the Wiki which is probably not consulted by many. BTW, all of the KDE4 \
apps are maintained by a single person who is of a very careful nature (probably \
understandably given the huge cardhouse he is responsible of); Marko sadly died a few \
years back while we were gaining momentum to get an initial selection of KF5 ports up \
for inclusion review.

> So, maybe you are right - regrettably. It would be a huge effort to get current KDE \
> releases to run in MacPorts. I think the MacPorts developers would provide help and \
> advice, but a few years back Marko, René and I repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly \
> asked for help and advice from KDE core developers and none was forthcoming.

I doubt that has changed much, with the exception of 1 new maintainer who seems to be \
on a wavelength quite similar to mine.

Right now, if we'd want to get even the KF5 frameworks accepted a decision would have \
to be made how to deal with the Qt5 problem. My own patched Qt5 port is designed to \
be an install alternative for the official one (I do have a minimal set of patches \
for Qt 5.12.6, which I've only been able to test on Linux so no guarantees there). \
I've found it prohibitively difficult to co-operate with the Qt5 port maintainer \
though, and the general opinion is that Qt5 is a problematic port that breaks easily. \
so the best approach might be to add a Qt glue library that provides at least an \
alternative version of the QSP that does work as we'd want (= point to standard XDG \
locations). My current approach already uses an alternative class (QExtStandardPaths) \
and good old CPP macros injected via the compiler commandline to get code to use it. \
If memory serves me well I already have a PoC glue library that could be injected in \
a similar fashion (commandline, or a CMake hook provided via the ECM).

> I fear however that Apple may come out with a new version of its OS that makes it \
> impossible to run the KDE 4 apps. 

As long as Qt4 can be made to build and Apple's SIP and related annoyances can still \
be turned off those apps should continue to run. If not, that might simply mean that \
Macs are no longer intended to be general-purpose desktop computers (I for one have \
decided years ago already that my 2011 MBP is the last new Mac I'll ever have \
bought). Either way, I kind of doubt that KDE as an organisation are very thrilled \
about continued use of KDE4 apps...

> > My impression at the moment is that we should only be on platforms
> > where we're present on their main apps forum rather than just lateral
> > ones (F-Droid, Homebrew, downloadable msi or dmg files, etc).
> 
> That's your (KDE Community's) prerogative, but watch out for babies and bath \
> water…

Either way, the only choice KDE have in this matter is whether or not they appoint \
someone officially in charge of that presence. They could try legal action to get \
their software out of a platform but I don't see how that could succeed with the \
current licensing model.

R.


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