[sword-devel] I give up

Wed May 13 14:27:43 MST 2020

Greg:

The repositories do not contain the latest versions. For example, the 
Debian Buster repository presents Xiphos 4.1, not the latest 4.2.

That is how I ended up reporting bugs that had been fixed. It is a wide 
problem; I mention Xiphos, not as a bad example, but because I happened 
to remember the version numbers.

Tom

Tom Sullivan
info at BeForgiven.INFO
FAX: 815-301-2835
---------------------

On 5/13/20 5:21 PM, Greg Hellings wrote:
> 
> 
> On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 3:57 PM Tom Sullivan <info at beforgiven.info 
> <mailto:info at beforgiven.info>> wrote:
> 
>     Y'all:
> 
>     First, I recognize that as a writer and long retired developer and
>     engineer (and thus obsolete) that in terms of technical issues, I am
>     way
>     out of my league with all you C++ programmers and experts.
> 
>     Second, I want to thank all of you for your hard work. Compared to what
>     is available for Windows and Mac users, available Bible software and
>     tools are sparse. You work as volunteers and on a shoestring budget.
>     Very many thanks. Without your work, I would be back to books and paper
>     without being able to search, compare versions, etc., with such ease.
>     Linux users are definitely an under served people group and you fill a
>     big need.
> 
>     Some of you may remember my SwordHammer project. Frankly, it has
>     crashed
>     and burned. Due to an architecture decision that was not the best, it
>     became unwieldy. And now, due to changes in my life, I cannot continue,
>     though I had started on a new architecture. This has two consequences:
>     1. There probably is not any longer reason to continue on this list
>     much
>     longer.
>     2. I got an appreciation for the huge problem caused by incompatible
>     Linux distros. For example, I did not know that Ubuntu users were
>     limited to sudo, instead of being able to run as root.
> 
>     Many of my previous interactions with this list have been caused by my
>     use of obsolete versions. I cannot help it. I seem only able to install
>     packages from the Debian repository (or download a *.deb suitable for
>     Debian Buster and install). I recently tried to compile and install
>     Sword (which worked), BibleTime (which crashed), and Xiphos (which I
>     was
>     not able to compile by various tries.) There are errors in the docs,
>     and
>     discrepancies between docs, and who knows what.) I failed. So I am
>     stuck, and that is not mainly your fault. The problem is that there is
>     no Linux-wide packaging or installation system. It may or may not be
>     technically feasible, I don't know). When things go wrong, I often have
>     no idea how to fix them.
> 
> 
> You really shouldn't have to download any files. You should only have to 
> run "sudo apt update && sudo apt install bibletime". Or, if you want to 
> compile BibleTime from source but use the packaged Sword library, "sudo 
> apt install libsword-dev". Currently, Xiphos is not compatible with 
> Debian/Ubuntu because it depends on ancient libraries that are not 
> available in those distributions anymore. However, packagers for those 
> distros, until recently, were maintaining a heavily patched version of 
> Xiphos that was avilable in their repositories. All that was needed was 
> "sudo apt install xiphos". No downloading or building or manually 
> finding dependencies.
> 
> 
>     So I have two suggestions here, but let me start with an analogy.
>     When I
>     have to buy a new vehicle, my concern is not if the seat is nice and
>     the
>     radio works and the vanity light works. I want it to safely take me
>     where I want to go. If there is a rip in the seat or dents in the body
>     or some rust or something, I can live with that. So, I am willing to
>     live with what is in the repositories and not waste everybody else's
>     time with bug reports. I apologize for doing that. It was not
>     intentional, but that is what happened.
> 
>     Suggestion 1: Clean up documentation. Prime exhibit: May Crosswire page
>     refers to Sword 1.8.0 with link for months with no mention of 1.8.1.
> 
> 
> I'm not sure where you're looking. This is the download page for Sword 
> source http://crosswire.org/sword/develop/index.jsp and it mentions 
> 1.8.1 without incident.
> 
> 
>     Suggestion 2: For the more popular distros, provide ready-to-go
>     packages, .deb files (or equivalent, such as .rpm) for installs and
>     updates, even if they do not hit the repositories until later. This
>     will
>     get users access who are not experts. In my opinion, for what it is
>     worth, this is at least as important as new features. Also allow users
>     an option to automatically check for updates and tell where to get a
>     new
>     package. I understand that this takes time and work. I would rather get
>     some new features and bug fixes, and be able to get and use them, than
>     new features I will never see because I can't compile or something. I
>     rather think that others are also in my position as well.
> 
> 
> This is usually a Very Bad Idea for upstream projects. Every distro has 
> its own quirks, foibles, and differences. For instance, gtkhtml is still 
> avilable on Fedora but not on Ubuntu or Debian. As such, Xiphos can be 
> compiled rather readily on Fedora but not on Debian/Ubuntu without heavy 
> patching of the source to disable the editor features. Those are details 
> already managed by the packagers of those distributions and are quite a 
> nightmare for every upstream project to keep track of. Nor is it easy to 
> keep separate the very tiny tweaks that make up the Debian -> Ubuntu -> 
> Mint/Pop/etc food chain where downstream distributions consume upstream 
> packages in some manner. Providing a build is not something upstream 
> projects like Sword ought to do.
> 
> Should our docs be updated so that they work in those distros, where 
> possible? Yes. But it sounds like most of your difficulty was with the 
> package manager on the Debian (or Ubuntu?) system you were using. For an 
> end user, you should have just "sudo apt install <my pacage>" and been 
> able to get along without trouble. The fact you weren't was a failure on 
> the part of the distribution. Not on Sword, Crosswire, BibleTime, or 
> Xiphos. I have no idea what your ultimate goal is, though, so I can't 
> give you more particular details than that.
> 
> --Greg
> 
> 
>     For what it is worth, and sorry it is so long. Sorry again for wasting
>     all your time in the past. God bless you and keep up all the good work.
>     It is not perfect, but it is definitely good and I use your stuff many
>     hours a week and every day.
> 
>     Sincerely,
>     Tom Sullivan
> 
>     -- 
>     Tom Sullivan
>     info at BeForgiven.INFO
>     FAX: 815-301-2835
>     ---------------------
> 
> 
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