On 17 Sep, aw29...@gmail.com wrote in message <512be99b50.and...@no.reply>:
> In message <1253105573.5804.236.ca...@duiker> > John-Mark Bell <j...@netsurf-browser.org> wrote: > > >>> Future major changes to the way in which the core works are liable > >>> to require corresponding changes in platform frontends. If any > >>> given frontend has no maintainer, then the chances of the required > >>> changes being made are very slim indeed. The alternative is that > >>> all development stops. Unsurprisingly, we're unwilling to do that. > >> > >> Can you not just take some time out and modify the RO front end? > > > > That doesn't solve the problem -- the RISC OS frontend has no active > > maintainer. I've been taking sometime out and modifying the RISC OS > > frontend for the last 2.5 years. I no longer have time to do that. > > You said "the RISC OS frontend has had almost no development for the > last 2.5 years". Now you're saying you've been modifying it for 2.5 > years. I would imagine that there is a *vast* difference between bodging the front-end to ensure that it keeps working with less dramatic (in API terms) developments in the browser core, and completely restructuring the front-end to make it work with what are (if my understanding is correct) very significant changes to NetSurf's internal APIs. The developers clearly care enough about retaining RISC OS support that they've been bodging for 2.5 years. Now that changes to the browser core mean that bodging is no longer enough (for any front-end), there needs to be someone able to devote time to sorting the RISC OS front-end out properly. At present, those who /are/ interested don't seem to have the time, and those who have the time don't seem to be interested. > Do you have time to do this or is something else more appealing about the > other platforms? You still seem to be spectacularly missing the point. The NetSurf developers are doing what they do in their spare time because it is fun, and it interests them. If developing on RISC OS doesn't interest them, and they don't have access to a RISC OS system on which to do that development, then -- frankly -- that's their decision. Not yours. I don't see why they have to justify it to anyone, either. If they didn't care about RISC OS, then I would imagine that dropping RISC OS support from the browser core tomorrow would lose them a number of developmental headaches. Personally, I'm grateful that a bunch of developers have worked out how to develop a web browser on a platform that has proper development tools (hence speeding up their work) and access to many more developers that the RISC OS world can ever dream of, while still enabling RISC OS to have its own native version of the finished product with a native front-end. All they're asking in return is that a RISC OS developer joins them to keep the RISC OS bits up to date. Sorry, but that doesn't seem like a big ask to me -- which is probably why I offered to help, although I don't seem to have the time available right now either. -- Steve Fryatt - Leeds, England http://www.stevefryatt.org.uk/
