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A universal (literally) ERP - " if we can do an invoice here, it's a pretty safe bet we can do it in Alpha Centauri as well -- as long as Alpha Centauri dig free software."
Table Of Contents
Introduction
This Cousin covers the three main mailing lists for the GNU Enterprise project, gnue, gnue-dev and gnue-announce. For more information about GNUe, see their home page at http://www.gnuenterprise.org. Details of the mailing lists can be found at http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnue, http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnue-dev, http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnue-announce.
It also covers the #gnuenterprise IRC channel. A great deal of development discussion for this project goes on in IRC. You can find #gnuenterprise on irc.openprojects.net:6667, or you can review the logs at http://www.gnuenterprise.org/irc-logs/.
1. On-Line Analytical Processing using GNU Enterprise
13�Mar�2002�-�14�Mar�2002 (2 posts) Archive Link: "OLAP"
Topics: Reports
People: Abdul Hafiz Abdullah,�Derek Neighbors
Abdul Hafiz Abdullah said he had done some looking, but "didnt find much on discussion on free OLAP" . He asked "if anyone is working on this." He was " thinking of building something on top of postgresql with python, GEAS, C++ and make it part of GNUE." . Derek Neighbors said " I do a LOT of OLAP work for my real job. No one is currently working on this, but I think the best language to write an OLAP tool in would be APL and there is a GPL implemenation of APL called A+ (aplus). I have talked to some folks there about it." There had also been some discussions "with the Postgres folks" , but no-one was working on it at the moment. He concluded "We should definitely talk more, its something GNUe is highly interested in. :)" .
2. GNUe demo at Phoenix Linux User Group
14�Mar�2002�-�15�Mar�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 14 Mar 2002"
Topics: Why GNUe?
People: Derek Neighbors,�Jason Cater,�Peter Sullivan,�David McWherter,�Nick Rusnov
Derek Neighbors (derek) said his demonstration to the Phoenix Linux User Group in Arizona, USA " went fairly well - big knock was - this stuff is WAY more cool than your website portrays it" . Jason Cater (jcater) said "that's one of my biggest gripes - no where do we promote what we REALLY CAN DO TODAY" .
After midnight, Derek said the " presentation went very well about 45 - 50 folks there" . He "gave an overview of gnue (slide based) - then did demo of designer to build a video collection database. The general sentiment was - THIS KICKS ASS - how come your web site doesnt say that it is this far along" ? He said "i was pretty amazed at the response truthfully - not so much that they liked it but really liked it - i didnt know how well the presentation woudl be excepted :) - thought maybe the 'hacker' coolness level was too low :)" . Peter Sullivan (psu) suggested "I suppose one of the lessons of free s/w is that people don;t necess get impressed by what you expect. GNUe is ultimately about ERP - but even today we have a set of tools that are a good free alternative for the sort of quick hack d/b apps that people tend to use M$ Access or Delphi etc for" . However, "because GNUe tools can use "industrial strength" d/b backend - be it postgres, SAP, or one of the non-free alternatives - it becomes far more scalable" . David McWherter (dtm) said he had seen a major department in a multi-national company " abusing Excel as its ERP - yes, the whole org workflow in an Excel spreadsheet file alone" , and asked ironically "is gnue compatible with Excel? ;)" Peter said "Excel is for accountants what emacs is for hackers - i.e. give them the chance and they'll never come out of it" . He thought "because of the common pro-XML attitude gnumeric might be a better choice for working with GNUE than Excel" .
Later, Derek quoted an e-mail he had received that said "Using a GUI tool to build a database app in a few minutes on a GPL platform with GPL tools is not glamorous? Seeing something that my employer (given the will to put in the effort) could use to run the entire business infrastructure with no licence fees and complete customization capability is not glamorous? Such power at a mouse click all for the downloading is not glamorous? Derek, YOU are not glamorous but I think GNUe is! If I can sell it right, at the right time, it could be the reason to run more Linux around my work place. Thanks for the presentation!" Derek was very pleased. Nick Rusnov (nickr) warned "the you are not glamourous part sounds like an insult - maybe you need more revlon" ? Derek claimed to "use mary kay or clinique" .
3. Web browser compatability with DCL
15�Mar�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 15 Mar 2002"
Topics: DCL
People: Derek Neighbors,�Arturas Kriukovas,�Daniel Baumann,�Michael Dean
Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) said that there had previously been problems using DCL with Microsoft Internet Explorer, but "i think my most recent upgrade (as of two days ago to dcl) fixed it" as a side-effect. Arturas Kriukovas said " konqueror is resisting (?) to work with timecarts:)" . Derek asked "does konq support ssl?" and asked "jamest/jcater can you confirm deny that konq works w/ dcl" ? - he personally "uses galeon" .
Arturas sad "i can login with konqueror => supports ssl" , but he still couldn't add a time card. Derek said the problem was probably with konq rather than DCL. Arturas confirmed that it was working with Internet Explorer. Derek started "downloading konq now to verify problem" , and said "konq doesnt appear to support ssl" . Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) said "it should be - the last time I used konq it did and that was many many moons ago" . Michael Dean confirmed he also got " an error trying to submit a time card - cannot find host www.gnuenterprise.org" . He said " for the longest time konq wouldn't even allow login - their javascript is still a little broken, I guess - but it's MUCH better than previous versions" .
Later, Derek asked "so is this time card issue a konq problem or a dcl problem?" . Arturas confirmed "i can reach bank web site over https with kong => it supports ssl" . He said "i just installed kde with all software, kong was there - and it works with ssl - maybe kong needs additional package to work with ssl - what was installed in my system by default" ? Derek said "i looked and dont find anything in debian for it" and suggested " you try galeon or mozilla instead for now :)" .
4. DataVision as an alternative to GNUe Reports
15�Mar�2002�-�18�Mar�2002 (1 post) Archive Link: "[Gnue-dev] (no subject)"
People: Bajusz Tam�s,�Derek Neighbors,�Jason Cater
Bajusz Tam�s said that he had found a free software reporting package called DataVision. "This is a report designer (written in java), and very similar to GNUe reports concept." . He wondered "can this be a good starting point?" .
Two days later on IRC,, Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) said " unfortunately if its java we cant use it - but we can use concepts :)" . Looking at the FAQ, he noted " a. they use csv to import ot excel [...] b. they use docbook to do transformatoins [...] c. they use jdbc only" . He wasn't opposed to simple products that did a single thing well, but GNUe Reports was wider in scope. Bajusz (btami) clarified "I am only talking about his layout tags in report.dtd - groups, pages, etc." . Derek said he thought the DataVision tags were fairly simple, "but maybe an ok starting point - at this point i would like to go more 'simple' than complex so i can start on the xslt engine portion - i.e. get enough 'basic' tags defined so that we can write the transformation style sheets and have worrking basic reports" . Having a working prototype was the best way of getting feedback. Jason Cater (jcater) said that DataVision would "serve basic needs well - but doesn't seem scalable or very adaptable outside of it's limited scope" .
5. Tradeshow appearances for GNUe?
17�Mar�2002�-�20�Mar�2002 (1 post) Archive Link: "Report from the FOSE Conference"
Topics: Why GNUe?
People: Derek Neighbors,�Stan Klein,�Jason Cater,�Nick Rusnov,�Jeff Bailey
On IRC, Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) reported " hey IBM invited us to be on their 'tradeshow' circuit" . He "was amazed that unsolicited they found us and asked us to exhibit at their conferences" . He had received "a huge packet in the mail about becoming an exhibitor" . Most of the shows were irrelevent to GNUe, "but there is one in Anahiem on 'data management'" . He said " if they would let us exhibit for free i would consider" it, as he could probably get there independantly.
Three days later, Stan Klein e-mailed about another trade show - "FOSE is the Federal Office Systems Expo, an annual trade show held at the Washington, DC Convention Center. There are apparently some free booths given to user groups and other non-profits" , but he had been unable to get one in time for GNUe. Instead, he "cobbled together a one-page, one-side flyer (text below)" and "The Northern Virginia Linux Users Group (NOVALUG), which had the only booth devoted to free/open-source software, was gracious enough to allow me to leave copies of the flyer at their booth."
He also went to "the Enterprise Solutions area" run by the US "Federal Government's lead agency for information technology procurement" and spoke to some people there, including "the Director of Business Development for the GSA IT Acquisition Center, who said he would pass the information along to the program manager of the E-Government Initiative. I also spoke to people at the Chief Information Officers' group booth and at a booth devoted to the NASA "Seat Management" program. In both cases, the people there said they would pass the information along to others."
Stan gave "The text of the flyer" , which was based on "the Mini-FAQ and the FAQ" , with some new material explaining the concept of 'Free Software,' including reference to the GNU/FSF web site.
Later, on IRC, Derek Neighbors (derek) commented " that was pretty cool of sklien - i thought it was next week - and started to box up the fliers we had left to send to him (but have been too swamped)" . Jason Cater (jcater) said "well, it is east coast - so there's a time difference :-)" . Derek said "we definitely need to work on 3 or 4 marketing items - like business card template, tri fold pamplet, postcard mailer, and 1 page spec sheet kind of thing - and get in cvs - so people can just co from CVS and email to print shop and pick up at the event :)" Jason said he didn't have any non-proprietary destktop publishing tools. Nick Rusnov (nickr) said "I could try osome stuff in Sodipodi" . Jeff Bailey (jbailey) thought "That sounds kinky." . Nick retorted "sodipodi IS kinky.. they use a squirrel as their logo" . Derek said "i will have to look at this sodipodi" .
6. Using GNUe Forms with small databases
18�Mar�2002 (2 posts) Archive Link: "[Gnue-dev] A few of questions for a new project that will use GNUe"
Topics: Forms
People: Andres Moya,�Derek Neighbors
Andres Moya asked about scalability - " The application will need to scale down to a single PC with Windows 98 running both the database server and the client, and up to a few dozen of clients in different sites talking to a single db server. The only server I've found that runs on W98 is MySQL. Do you think that the combination MySQL + GNU-e is lightweigth enough to run in a single PC?" . Derek thought this would be feasible, but noted "if you find a smaller database like Gadfly or ZODB or Other (even txt files) you can easily writ a driver for it." .
7. Preferred patches format
18�Mar�2002 (1 post) Archive Link: "[Gnue-dev] Instructions for Generating Patches"
People: Jason Cater
Jason Cater suggested "either a page on the website or a FAQ entry covering how to generate patches and where supporters should send patches." This could include "a standard set of flags for "cvs diff"" that were preferred, in the same way that other projects like Open Office worked.
8. GNUe Financials status
18�Mar�2002 (1 post) Archive Link: "Re: Finance and accounting module proposal"
People: Richard Rosenberg,�Neil Tiffin
Neil Tiffin forwarded an e-mail from Richard Rosenberg expressing interest in " the accounting and finance side" . He asked how he could participate. Neil said that the current functionality was co-ordinated by GNUe team members, " with input from many people." . IRC was the main discussion method, but e-mail was also used. He added "We really need a CPA on the project." . The current Financials proposal " was developed using GEAS version 1" and it was not clear how it would be affected by the decision " to rewrite GEAS." In any case, " Current work on Packages is waiting progress on the tools." Richard noted that "there are code snipets (python class definitions?) included in the proposal. Is there an available database model as well?" . Neil replied "Yes, the point to GEAS is to abstract the actual Database and provide an easy way for Business Analysts to configure the system. The python snippets you mention are referred to (by GNUe) as business methods and could be written in many languages. GEAS version 1 supported Python and C."
9. GNUe as a free alternative to Microsoft Access - and more
18�Mar�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 14 Mar 2002"
Topics: Why GNUe?
People: Derek Neighbors,�Jason Cater
Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) said he "does fear gnue is leaning more towards an access replacement than an ERP replacement BUT that said - most large companies use access :)" . Jason Cater (jcater) agreed - "nothing wrong w/being all" . Derek said "i see my coworkers using access for stuff they SHOULDNT - but using a mainframe and DB2 is too tough for them and they just want to get their job done" . The main thing that stopped GNUe from being used as a full ERP platform as of time of writing was "mostly our lack of application services" , but that wasn't an absolute, as ERPs had existed before Application Servers. However, "if everyone who was using access today started using gnue instead i htink we would all be VERY happy - also i think gnue blows access out fo the water for scalability" .
10. International support for GNUe
18�Mar�2002�-�19�Mar�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 18 Mar 2002"
Topics: Forms
People: Bajusz Tam�s,�Arturas Kriukovas,�Derek Neighbors,�Jason Cater
Bajusz Tam�s (btami) asked " what about internationalization?" . Arturas Kriukovas (Arturas) said " every label and etc. in forms is prepared for easy takin-out, translation and putting it back - also time/date and etc settings are beeing" planned, but nothing had been put in CVS for these yet. He was keen for help with any of these areas!
The next day, Arturas confirmed he was going to use gettext to substitute text on forms from English to an end-user's native language. This meant all the "text in *.py files" would need translating. He had changed the XML parser to support "all national symbols" , but they weren't displaying correctly except in form titles. He had asked in the #wxwindows irc channel for some help, but all they could suggest was "that my system may be not configured exactly" . He confirmed his code "takes out strings marked for translation - puts into separate file for human-translation" . Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) was very impressed - "ok so we need to figure out the display issue - and we are good to go" on basic i18n support.
The next i18n task would be "for the applications - i would like to see us have ONE form file that supports all languages" instead of having to re-do the .gfd (GNUe Forms Definition file) "for every language" - "other wise to make contacts.gfd i18n i have to copy the form and hand change all the labels etc" . However, he would wait and see Arturas's current patch first, as "we dont have applications ready to ship - so the .gfd translation is secondary :)" . This could probably be done "the xml way which i think is via entities" . Arturas said the " parser will need additional modifications - but that won't be a problem" . Derek suggested putting a "default language code" in the gnue.conf file for each user, " then we could AUTO select" the appropriate set of labels.
Arturas suggested creating a file in CVS, "something like i18n.txt [...] with phylosophy and status of i18n [...] what has to be done/what way and etc." Derek said that i18n support was important to GNUe, "as the people that have the most interest in GNUe at this point are non English speaking countries" . Arturas was worried that the display problem could "become the biggest headache" as "no one no where has no knowledge about i18n symbols in all wxwindows" . Derek said it might well be a configuration problem, in which case it might be worth getting some other i18n-based users to "test it on their configuration" . Arturas said this could be done even without GNUe installed - "All that it requires is X,python, and wxwindows" . Several people were pressed into service to test this, including Derek after Arturas confirmed that "there should be no need for you to change anything in localization - gtk, wxwindows .... takes localization info not from linux" .
Another aspect of international support was "date, time and etc" - "in USA time is AM/PM, in Lithuania time is in 24:00 and etc. - but maybe leave it after i18n symbols support" . The priority list was:
Later, Derek asked Jason Cater (jcater) if he had seen Arturas' patch. Jason said "it's what I expected to see - a lot of _() usage" to "use gettext in python" . Derek wondered whether all of the text Arturas had identified actually needed translating - " or can we assume 'developers' will speak english" ? Jason suggested "I think only text the enduser will see should be translated myself" . Derek agreed, but noted "i think he is only doing what we told him so he probably woudl agree with us :)" . Jason said the practical issue was that the more text was replaced, the "more translators will have to translate" - plus it would slow down the program. Derek suggested "i think a good rule of thumb is developer out put should be english only (like the code) - end user output should be i18n" . This wasn't always a clear distinction, however.
11. Directory management - collaberation with E/AS?
19�Mar�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 19 Mar 2002"
People: Yurii Rashkovskii,�Derek Neighbors
Yurii Rashkovskii asked whether the GNUe project would be interested in collaberating with E/AS " to develop robust directory management" . He wasn't keen on LDAP, as it would " make system administrator required to edit its configs; also (most important) - LDAP do not provides changelists, sync-backs and so on" . Directory management for E/AS would "be a supplementary application, used primarily for configuration issues and tracking things that are out of an object model - like system clients" . Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) said " why not use existing standards? [...] storing it in SQL and replicating to LDAP or ActiveDirectory or NDS or such" . It wasn't a priority for GNUe at the moment, but "if you write directory services certainly we would be willing to 'replicate' to your directory as much as we are to LDAP or ActiveDirectory etc" .
12. Seperating business logic from forms
19�Mar�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 19 Mar 2002"
Topics: Forms, Application Server, Common
People: Derek Neighbors
It was asked how to seperate the business logic from forms in GNUe. Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) said that ultimately this was the purpose of GNUe Application Server (GEAS), " but SPECIFICALLY you can do this in two tier as well - you can put the actual python code outside the form file and just do an 'include'" . He added " long term GEAS is the way to for this - GEASv1 does this right now today but has some technical limitations and we are addressing the short comings in GEASv2" . He confirmed that GEAS version 2 would include support for events, as had GEAS version 1 - " basically the biggest change is using the gnue-common architecture" for database and RPC abstraction.
13. GNUe Application Server version 2 update
19�Mar�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 19 Mar 2002"
Topics: Application Server
People: Daniel Baumann,�Jason Cater,�Derek Neighbors
Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) said he " really need to pund out this api spec ;)" for the new version of GNUe Application Server (GEAS). He said he wanted "to propose soem ideas anyway and see what everyone thinks - taking some freom reinhard's and building on that" . Jason Cater (jcater) said he feared "we are starting at the wrong end of the geas problem" . Derek agreed - "i think in someways it might be best to take what we have and see what it would take to make it use common - and common rpc - and slowly clean up as we go" . Daniel pointed out " the client api needs transaction support though [...] you don't do anything without using a transaction object" . Derek clarified that he was not opposed to a re-write. Jason said the place to start was with the GNUe Class Definition (gcd) file formats. Daniel said a GEAS re-write was essential "for a more fully intergated GNUe ;)" He thought gcd files should " look like ODL files" .
14. RedHat or Debian for GNU/Linux GNUe users
19�Mar�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 19 Mar 2002"
People: Derek Neighbors
After spending the best part of two days helping a RedHat GNU/Linux user get all the dependancies working for GNUe, Derek Neighbors concluded " we need to find out how to make a rh7.2 install easier - maybe i need to look at making rpms" . These sorts of problems were why he liked Debian GNU/Linux - "debian install of gnue literally takes longer to download than anything else" .
15. Argentinian ERP development using GNUe
20�Mar�2002 (1 post) Archive Link: "[Gnue-dev] Introducing proyect PAPO"
Topics: Application Server
People: John Lenton,�James Thompson,�Derek Neighbors
On IRC, John Lenton (Chipaca) asked "where are the databases created when not using GEAS?" . James Thompson (jamest) said "anywhere you like" - there was no code to do this. John asked " could you send me a schema dump of the db so we can try the stuff out wo geas?" He said "we're trying to get a hand on things like invoices and stuff like that" . James said that "all that work is currently geas only :(" , although remembering Issue�#9, Section�#1� (18�Dec�2001:�GNUe on Slashdot) , he noted " at one time I swore I heard dneighbo talk about using SQL*Ledger schema w/ a gnue front end as a sample - but I'm not sure if that " ever happened. The standard schema for some (but not all) of the GNUe Applications had been defined " in geas's gcd language - it's in the packages dir in cvs" .
John tracked down the schemas, but didn't find them very readable. Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) emphasised " THE GCDS WERE WRITTEN TO BE READ BY OBJECTS - thusly the schemas are evil and not to be used without the objects" . He asked for "more information with what you guys are doing with gnue :) - so maybe we can help you guys out and in the process get some gnue packages released :)" .
As requested, John sent an e-mail to gnue-dev, explaining the long term goal was "to build a complete replacement for Tango" , which was "an ERP system that tends to the argentine market." They wanted to use GNUe Enterprise as the basis "to build from" , starting initially with "a simple invoicing system targeted at services" , so that there were no issues around inventory. They would "grow from there, creating different invoicing front-ends for different kinds of bussinesses, adding management of customer data, provider data, inventory, bookkeeping, asset management... all one step at a time." . They would contribute back "where we'll probably be having to add features to for example GEAS" .
16. Installing GNUe to non-standard directories
20�Mar�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 20 Mar 2002"
People: Arturas Kriukovas,�Derek Neighbors,�Marcos Dione
Marcos Dione (StyXman) asked how to install GNUe as a non-root user. Arturas Kriukovas (Arturas) said the normal install "tries to copy something in /usr which you can't do unless you are root" . Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) suggested " use cvs if you want to determine WHERE to isntall" - "it ASKS where you want to put things iirc - by default i believe it puts in ~/bin/ for the executables and ~/gnue/etc/ for the configuration files" .
17. Praefectus TEP and GNUe
20�Mar�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 20 Mar 2002"
Topics: Why GNUe?, Application Server, Common
People: James Thompson,�Marcus Wolf,�Derek Neighbors,�Derek Neighors,�Nick Rusnov,�John Lenton,�Marcus,�Jason Cater,�Calum Morrell,�Neil Tiffin
Marcus Wolf (klog) asked for comments on Praefectus TEP. James Thompson said " quick read thru it makes me think it's somewhat like GNUe" , except using java instead of python. Marcus had wondered "maybe there's a way to interoperate with gnue - or even merge code 100%" . Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) said "we are not java fans, but that doesnt rule interoperation or merging out" .
However, "we are all about 'free software' and thus on a whole we dont mesh with 'open source' ideology always" . He explained " open source is a saying giving source code away is good for business and helps the business be more profitable - free software is saying sharing is good (giving source is part of sharing) and if that helps a busieness and profits great if not too bad" . Marcus asked if "free soft as opposed to open source not only implies obligation of providing source with software but also provide software at no cost?" . Derek said "we are not saying you cant make money with free software" - it was about freedom rather than zero price, although in practice free software tended to be distributed at zero or nominal cost. Marcus thought this was splitting hairs - "i want to code !" Derek said "honestly that is an acceptable answer - in fact its the answer many people here have - and there isnt anything wrong with it" .
Later, Derek said "from the sounds of it we would love to have you work on geas v2 - as it seems this praefectus seems very similar to it" . Alternatively, "you could make our forms engine, reporting engine etc talk to praefectus" . However, "any time spent on interoperation is time lost to bring products forward" . Marcus agreed.
Derek said that the new GEAS would be in python, whereas the old one had been C. The main reason for this change was "because we have somethign called gnue-common in python that handles rpc abstraction, database abstraction, xml parsing etc" which the new GEAS would use. Also, "coding in python is MUCH more maintainable and quicker" to write code in. Performance was "as good as java's - no one tries to kid someone that its as fast as C" . However, "converting python code to C isnt a huge jump - so if we start seeing bottlenecks we convert those pieces to C - for now maintainablity is more important than speed to us (as is for java developers) - as in enterprise development speed of development and maintainability is much higher cost than the speed at which it runs" . In practice, GNUe Common was already in use in two-tier environments (i.e. without the caching of GEAS) and "regularly is pulling about 3million records off an OS/390 mainframe running IBM DB2" .
Marcus asked "is geas object management hierarchy based? would you have any interest for that, and strong security? really is about seeing where i could help. hierachy = tons of interesting things - it could bring authority spaces, common namespace between multiple object servers, etc." Nick Rusnov (nickr) said Role Based Access Control "is desired" . Marcus suggested "geas could be b2 graded ;)" . Nick said "only if the undelying OS is also b2, no?" He thought "It'd be nice to have OS-level RBAC - maybe the Hurd can have that."
Derek said "we are interested in security specifically RBAC" but "we are NOT willing to dicate an OS one needs to run GNUe" . He suggested "klog you would have to read stan's proposal" on security on the website. He said "one of the philophies of gnue is we dont try to impose things - even security wise - as while a bank wants rock hard security - someone in a small shop may not want the hassle" . Marcus agreed - "pluggable would be a good thing - pluggable authentication, access control and audit" .
Derek thought Marcus would find learing python easy - "if you know C/C++/Java its hardly called 'learning'" . Marcus said "i fear python" as "the day you introduce security - everything changes in terms of performance" . Derek said "we have had several C die hards in here - that went to python kicking and screaming - and almost every single one of them hasnt touched C since learning python" . Python wouldn't be any slower than java. Marcus said "actually i was thinking about a rewrite in C" for his application server anyway. Derek said C wasn't ideal for security - "C forces you to manage memory and such - and MUCH more susceptible to buffer overflows and such - and yes i know the argument that good C programming doesnt have htis issue - but i like to counter with well bad java/python/etc dont have it" . He said "we think of python as a good prototyping language that is suitable for real work as well - but we arent unwilling to drop to C when performance is an issue" . In practice, bad C could be slower than good python. Nick said "the hardest part of python is breaking C habits and structuring it like a python program."
Marcus asked "do you think there is a really opportunity to build businesses around gnue? that would provide gnue-related services?" John Lenton (Chipaca) said "Well we certainly think so :)" Marcus said "with closed source software, i'm alone - most likely will never market the software since lack of time and capital - free software, if there is a possibility to build something real - with large network of people around it, than i'm in ;)" . Nick said "yea - nice community - very fuzzy" . Marcus asked whether GNUe project members were mainly coders or "business people here? with studies in business?" James Thompson (jamest) said Neil Tiffin and Derek Neighbors were more focused on the business analyst side - "they are tech people turned managers or something - scary :)" The thread degenerated into abuse about the type of cheap aftershave that business-type people wore.
Derek said that "typically a software house" provided a wide range of services besides licensing software. "for gnue because its complex there is money to be made in a. instaling the software - b. in training people" , but "i think most of the money will be in customization(feature enhancement) and consulting" . He suggested that even proprietary ERP companies weren't "making thier bank on licensing fees alone" , as you could tell from their pricing structures. Jason Cater (jcater) suggested "of course, to stay on the community's good side, we'd expect some code contributions back into our project if you're gonna profit off of our hard work :)" . Derek said "the ones that are good consultants and treat customers right will do just fine imho - i wouldnt expect a free software consultant using gnue to be a millionaire - but i would suspect one day they could live comfortably " . Calum Morrell (drochaid) thought "you undervalue the potential for a product such as GNUe - I think the only limitation is the continued developement it requires" .
18. PyXML dependancy removed
20�Mar�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 20 Mar 2002"
People: Jason Cater,�Derek Neighbors,�James Thompson
Jason Cater (jcater) announced " We've removed a dependency... PyXML is no longer required. We can use Python 2.0+'s built-in support now." . Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) feared "this rendered all arturas work as dead" . Jason said it was "independent of arturas' stuff" . James Thompson (jamest) asked ironically "isn't the sign of kwalitee koding an increase in the number of lines of code and dependencies" ?
19. Debian packages for GNUe
20�Mar�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 20 Mar 2002"
People: Jason Cater,�Daniel Baumann,�Derek Neighbors,�Nick Rusnov
Further to Issue�#20, Section�#4� (7�Mar�2002:�Debian packages for GNUe) , Jason Cater (jcater) noted that the Debian package for "gnue-common is marked as Section: interpreters" , which he didn't think was right. Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) wondered if it was "because it uses python? (stupid reason)" . Derek Neighbors (derek) said "our debian stuff needs a LOT of work - better debconf stuff - and get it working - and do apache style packaging - as well as good descriptions, keywords etc :)" He was pleased that the Debian GNU/Linux packages for GNUe had been started, however. Nick Rusnov (nickr) suggested "filing bugs, lots of them" - "they are official packages, you send a well structured mail to submit@bugs.debian.org - read the website bugs.debian.org I think to figure out the format" . Derek said he would also like " to get the source of the packages in our tree and learn how they work" . He felt GNUe "really need someone highly involved in the project (um jbailey) to help us in a pinch and maybe stand up as the 'maintainer' - as maurizo does out of kindness" .
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Sharon And Joy
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