On Wed, 2 Apr 2014 18:43:16 +0200 Axel Beckert <a...@deuxchevaux.org> wrote:
> Hi, > > On Wed, Apr 02, 2014 at 04:27:53PM +0200, Amadeusz Sławiński wrote: > > Some of you may know that I maintain separate development tree on > > github (https://github.com/amade/screen/tree/devel/src) in which I > > have a more than 300 changes committed in comparison with official > > tree. So I may as well do this officially ;) > > I think the development of GNU Screen should stay on Savannah. Github > is not free software and hosting free software with non-free software > is always a dangerous thing, not only politically. I'm also leaning toward leaving project where it's already located, there is no need to move it. > Surely, there's also Gitorious, Gitlab and Repo.or.cz, but I don't see > any advantage over Savannah other than that some of the are more > "agile" and "hip". (And I neither consider GNU Screen being agile nor > hip. I consider it to be mature and stable, despite some changes in > the past years, like bumping the protocol version between client and > server, reduced stability noticably.) > > > * new features (256 colors in hardstatus, hardstatus on top, > > truecolor, ...) > > Nice. > > > * removal of ancient code (removed most of #ifdef for ancient > > systems) > > Not happy. > > I fear that this may cause a lot of breakage. Linux(*) is by far not > the only platform for Screen out there. > > (*) You wrote earlier that you only tested your code on Linux. Linux > is by far not the only platform, GNU Screen runs on. That's why I warn before hand. Screen is project which accumulated more then 25 years of code according to copyrights. And while it may be interesting to historians, I think it's time source is stripped of those workarounds and retested on machines people use, because it's likely that it just works with far fewer hacks, than it had. > > * removal of features which didn't seem useful or could be replaced > > Not happy. > > On which base did you decide that? I suspect that these kind of > changes will make many users unhappy, too. > > Please list which features you removed, so that people at least have a > chance to object. > > E.g. I know people who think the most important screen feature is it's > ability to talk to serial consoles. (One of the features, tmux doesn't > have btw.) And I fear that this is one of these underestimated > features which may easily be dropped by people who never needed them. That's why I want to talk about it before I do anything drastic, one of reasons I tried to describe my changes at least a bit ;) From fast comparing between source files: multiuser - seemed more like security risk to me braille - couldn't test :( utmp - seemed broken and there is also utmpx? nethack - funny, but who really needs it? zmodem - according to wiki some ancient file transfer protocol there may be something else... One of my goals was to make code far more readable, so I reformatted whole tree, and also enabled most of features by removing #ifdefs. And believe me it's far more easy to understand what's going on. > > First thing I would do, would be releasing current git tree as > > screen-4.1 also opening separate version 4 branch, > > Your git tree or the one on Savannah? I hope you mean the one on > Savannah. Of course I mean savannah one. > > only for bug fixes so distributions have something recent to base > > their packages on. Next step would be merging my 'devel' branch into > > master and start developing version 5. > > Ok, this sound as least saner than I feared. > > Anyway, since this topic seems to get into a more "dangerous" and > fast-paced state, I may sent some of my already written replies to > some of the earlier threads on that topic -- which I didn't send yet, > because I felt to angry to write calm mails at that point. I want to make sure that screen stays as usable as it is to people who use it, but also would like to see new stuff happening, that's why I started this talk. Amadeusz
