Summer of Code: DXF support, and my horrible pessism.
I'd like to know more about the Summer of Code project to add DXF support to Inkscape.
I've read the Proposals page on the wiki http://www.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SOC_Accepted_Proposals
What I am really interested to know is about reuse of code. The project description doesn't make any suggestion about reusing existing code and it looks like as if the Author is going to write something from scratch (possibly including other dxf code he has written previously).
Dia already has a library for importing DXF (and there are probably other open source programs with their own custom DXF support and some with more liberal licesing than others). I would very much like to see this code generalised and turned into a library that could be shared by Inkscape and other applications to share the maintainance burden (or failing that make the new code for Inkscape so that it can be reused by other applications).
I think the only way the project can succeed beyond the Summer of Code is if it produces code that can be used by more than just inkscape. We've all seen people gradually lose interest and watched bitrot set in.
And will the inkscape developers be encouraging him to LGPL this code rather than merely GPL it?
Sincerely
Alan Horkan
P.S. Sorry to be so pessimistic about it all.
On 7/8/05, Alan Horkan wrote:
Dia already has a library for importing DXF (and there are probably other open source programs with their own custom DXF support and some with more
*cough* dxflib *cough*
http://www.ribbonsoft.com/dxflib.html
liberal licesing than others). I would very much like to see this code generalised and turned into a library that could be shared by Inkscape and other applications to share the maintainance burden (or failing that make the new code for Inkscape so that it can be reused by other applications).
Alexandre
On 7/8/05, Alan Horkan wrote:
Dia already has a library for importing DXF (and there are probably other open source programs with their own custom DXF support and some with more
*cough* dxflib *cough*
http://www.ribbonsoft.com/dxflib.html
liberal licesing than others). I would very much like to see this code generalised and turned into a library that could be shared by Inkscape and other applications to share the maintainance burden (or failing that make the new code for Inkscape so that it can be reused by other applications).
Sure, iirc support for WMF was promised by the same guy.
Alexandre
On Fri, 8 Jul 2005, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2005 21:00:26 +0400 From: Alexandre Prokoudine <alexandre.prokoudine@...400...> To: Inkscape Devel List inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Summer of Code: DXF support, and my horrible pessism.
On 7/8/05, Alan Horkan wrote:
Dia already has a library for importing DXF (and there are probably other open source programs with their own custom DXF support and some with more
*cough* dxflib *cough*
That looks somewhat familiar. It is licensed under the GPL.
liberal licensing than others).
So if he chooses to write something new from scratch there is absolutely no point in making it any less than LGPL. I expect the mentors are making sure to keep people on the right track.
generalised and turned into a library that could be shared by Inkscape and other applications to share the maintainance burden (or failing that make the new code for Inkscape so that it can be reused by other applications).
Sure, iirc support for WMF was promised by the same guy.
*cough* libwmf *cough*
That would be pretty sweet alright.
Even if plans change I'm sure there is no shortage of file formats Inkscape would like to support and I'm more optimistic now he will be able to produce something great.
Sincerely
Alan Horkan http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
On Jul 8, 2005, at 9:49 AM, Alan Horkan wrote:
What I am really interested to know is about reuse of code. The project description doesn't make any suggestion about reusing existing code and it looks like as if the Author is going to write something from scratch (possibly including other dxf code he has written previously).
Well..
Back in the dark ages, I'd done stuff myself for conversions to and from DXF. Depending on how things are hooked in, there's often not a simple way to reuse something from such different internals.
participants (3)
-
Alan Horkan -
Alexandre Prokoudine -
Jon A. Cruz