Hi, everybody!
(*$ifdef Andreas Eckleder *)
Hallo, Andreas!
Meine persoenliche Antwort an Dich kam dreimal zurueck mit dem Vermerk "unbekannter Host". Da die Angelegenheit ohnehin alle GPCies betrifft, antworte ich jetzt ueber die Liste.
Ich hoffe, Du hast nichts dagegen, dass ich Teile deiner persoenlichen e-mail hier uebersetze und veroeffentliche ... #-)
(*$endif *)
Andreas Eckleder wrote to me (in German; translation by myself):
What about creating a GNU Pascal distribution with an installation tool which makes it extremely easy to install, and simultaeously does some other configuration tasks (environment variables, RHIDE configuration)? [...]
I would vote for it! Once upon a time I had started myself to write such an installation tool, but then there were several urgent GPC errors which were much more interesting ... ;-)
For DOS or for Linux? (Or for SGI?;-)
Be welcome to distribute this package on agnes and kampi, together with the rest of GNU Pascal!
However we must take care not to spoil the structure of the other parts of the GPC distribution. We do not want to prefer DOS or Linux users to any other ones.
The current structure is:
/ = ftp://agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de/gnu-pascal/ or ftp://kampi.hut.fi/jtv/gnu-pascal/
/ GPC source, global `README', etc.
/binary/ GNU-style GPC binary distribution, i.e. gpc-2.0.i586-linux.tar.gz, gpc-2.0.i386-djgppv201.zip, ...
/djgpp/ DJGPP-style GPC distribution (gpc20s.zip, gpc20b.zip)
/emx/ EMX-style GPC distribution (gpcsrc.zip, gpcdev.zip)
/beta/ beta versions
/alpha/ alpha versions
/old/ museum
/contrib/ useful independent contributions, e.g. `BPCompat'
/misc/ other stuff, e.g. the GPC WWW home page.
The package (How to call it? What about "Easy GPC?" I am taking this as a working title ... :-) must not occupy the main directory. OTOH, we must not hide it, of course.
What about another subdirectory `/easy/' from the same type as `/djgpp/' containing all needed `.zip' files plus the installation program and `README'? Having this, a user only needs to download the contents of *one* directory.
/easy/ complete GPC distribution for DOS (DJGPP) with a user-friendly, interactive installation program
And the global `README' would get a prominent pointer to this directory:
The easy way to install GNU Pascal ==================================
If you are running DOS, and you want to install a complete package via a user-friendly, interactive installation tool, please go to the `easy' subdirectory, download all files, store them in one directory on your hard disk, and type `install'.
If I remember right, The African Chief (Hi!:) had planned to write something similar for Windows. Then we could create more directories of this type, e.g. `/easy-dos/' and `/easy-w32/', and change the text in `README' accordingly.
BTW, the installation program "must" contain a text browser which presents the GNU license in full length! I have the impression that many users consider a program the more interesting, the more penetrant you point them to the license terms and conditions. If you tell them "you can just proceed and use it", people become sceptical.
sqr ( BTW ), if all components included are under the GNU GPL, it is perfectly legal to burn the whole stuff on a CD (or a stack of floppies) and to sell that CD. You are invited to do that, too.
Tschuess,
Peter
Dipl.-Phys. Peter Gerwinski, Essen, Germany, free physicist and programmer peter.gerwinski@uni-essen.de - http://home.pages.de/~peter.gerwinski/ [970201] maintainer GNU Pascal [970624] - http://home.pages.de/~gnu-pascal/ [970125]