On Mon, 4 Oct 2004, Peter Moulder wrote:
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 12:48:33 +1000 From: Peter Moulder <Peter.Moulder@...38...> To: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: spalah Re: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape Project Status 2004-10-01
On Sat, Oct 02, 2004 at 02:15:02PM -0300, bulia byak wrote:
We have this Spalah program for Flash export. Then we need to incorporate it into our distribution so that no extra installation is needed. Flash export is a very useful thing, even if static only.
We use external software for a number of input formats (dia, pstoedit, sketch, libwmf-bin). Dia is a very useful thing -- as is gimp -- but we don't and shouldn't include them in our distribution.
that is a bit disingenuous, the dia and gimp are both massive and it would not make sense to compile them in, libraries like libwmf and spalah are relatively small.
It's useful for users to be able to upgrade Spalah and Inkscape independently of each other.
I'd be inclined to argue that the kind of user that would want to upgrade Spalah independantly of Inkscape would also be the kind of user capable of compiling their own non-statically compiled builds.
We want users to test things like spalah.
Inkscape has not yet had an official stable release and as such all users should be considered testers, and with all due respect I think Inkscape could currently be described as 'alpha software' (to me beta implies some sort of freezed prerelease destined for an official release).
The "extra installation" isn't a problem for people who use tools like apt and emerge: these tools provide a better solution than bundling
for apt and emerge users it would be a better solution (and from Gentoo users it seems like a moot point as they will be compling from source anyway)
for ordinary users who dont really care either way it would not be a solution
If Debian and Gentoo themselves wish to provide specialised packages that would be great but until there is an official stable release I think users should be presented with the full Inkscape experience and not left unware of the possibilities.
When it comes time for a stable official release I hope both non-static and big fat static binaries can be provided to make it dead easy for users to run Inkscape where ever they want.
I request that Spalah not be added to inkscape source tree.
I'm not suggestion it be permanently added but to encourage testing and development I think it should be added at least for the next few releases.
Sincerely
Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/ Inkscape, Draw Freely http://inkscape.org Free SVG Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org