Magnate wrote:
> "Andrew Sidwell" <takkaria@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote
>> Yeah, Pete got it right. :) Though I'd rather the debian build of the
>> next release didn't contain X11 just because then the game will be Free
>> Software and thus be able to sit happily in main. The bit that isn't
free
>> software is the BMP im****ter; to fix this, someone would have to write
a
>> PNG loader replacement using libpng. (Volunteers always welcome!)
>
> Hmm. Is the BMP im****ter included in the main Angband-3.0.9b source
tarball?
Yes.
> If so then it won't get into debian/main, and you don't need to dump X11
> sup****t (at least, not for that reason.If the BMP im****ter is a separate
> download, then it doesn't contaminate the Angband package, and Angband
can
> go into main (if we dump X11). I can always make a separate non-free
package
> for the BMP im****ter if you want.
This is true for 3.0.9b, but I was thinking ahead to the next version
(3.1.0). Making a separate package for the BMP im****ter would be
pointless because you'd have to split it out into a library first, and
then it would still be under the Angband licence, and AIUI the GPL'd
Angband binary couldn't link to it (according to the traditional/FSF
interpretation of the GPL). The solution is just to write a PNG
loader/drop the X11 ****t.
> Personally I don't think dropping X11 from the Debian package is too
> terrible, since the vast majority of Debian users will be able to use at
> least one of SDL or GTK. In fact I think it might be worth investigating
> making it into separate packages: angband-sdl and angband-gtk, since you
> don't need both. The current Debian package (3.0.9a) actually uses Xaw
by
> default, so that's definitely going to change in any case.
>
> I'm not so convinced about the wisdom of dropping X11 sup****t more
> generally. As Pete implies, there are a number of *nix platforms which
won't
> sup****t either GTK or SDL, and as such wouldn't be able to run Angband
> except using ncurses (single window etc.). Hmmm.
I have my doubts that there are any modern Unix platforms which don't
sup****t either GTK or SDL. The Mac doesn't, but that Mac has its own
****t; Sun's OpenSolaris uses a patched GNOME desktop environment; BSD
users have just the same choice as Linux users; and Linux users can most
certainly use either. I'm not aware of any other currently-used Unixes.
Please note that the word "sup****t" applied to the X11 ****t means "no
one really maintains it or knows their way around it and it just happens
to not have broken yet". I have less-than-no motivation to learn how to
program X Windows (and the same with the Win32 API) but if someone else
has, they're free to come along and save it. :) As it is, I think it's
more im****tant to get the source GPL-clean and remove unmaintained
components.
--
Andrew Sidwell
http://rephial.org/
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