Re: [CLucene-dev] Python wrapper (AND OTHER STUFF)

[Ben v. K. <be...@vi...>]

David and all other interested parties,

First of I'd like to thank David for his email and for the work he has 
done on CLucene as well as furthering the usability of CLucene through 
pyclene. I won't comment about the python bindings, as I don't know 
really know much about python.

David Rushby wrote:

>  I made a half-hearted attempt to add this, but CLucene's Unicode
>support didn't seem to work on Win32/MinGW.  It's my understanding that
>CLucene's regular Unicode support (meaning UTF-2/UTF-16, or whatever)
>only works on Windows, though I assume the UTF-8 build would work on
>*nix.
>  I don't have MSVC 7.1, so I didn't try that.  I was later able to
>manipulate the free command-line version of MSVC 7.1 into working with
>Python 2.4, but that was only recently, and I haven't made another
>attempt at Unicode support for pyclene since.
>  Actually, I myself don't need Unicode support at all, so I don't plan
>to invest any more effort in it until more urgent limitations are
>fixed.
>  
>
Unicode on MSVC does work, but does not use any UTF encoding. UTF8 was a 
recent addition, and I haven't been involved in the UTF8 encoding code - 
i also I haven't heard any comments from users about this code.

>  CLucene's multithreading code is a monstrosity.  It uses some kind of
>busy wait scheme instead of native multithreading APIs, and (mostly)
>explicit lock/unlock calls.  
>
Umm... yes. Very true. It was always intended to be written - but never 
happened.

>-----------
>- License -
>-----------
>  CLucene is licensed under LGPL, so pyclene is too, though I strongly
>prefer BSD-style licenses.  The major competitor, PyLucene, was GPL
>until circa July 2004, when it switched to BSD-style.  This difference
>in licenses would probably have almost no impact on most Python
>programmers, but it irritates me nonetheless, especially in light of
>the amount of effort I've invested in CLucene itself.  "Free as in
>free" will always sit better with me than "free as in compulsory".
>  
>
I am willing to discuss such a change. There have been rumours of an 
integration into Apache, so perhaps the license could come under that. I 
am back at university studying and am going overseas in 6 weeks for a 
semester - perhaps now would be a good time to make any major changes to 
CLucene, because I will unfortunately have even less time than I have 
been able to give in the past year.

>So let me get a release-worthy version of pyclene together and post it
>somewhere on the web.  After that, if Ben is receptive to its
>integration into the official CLucene code base, I'll check it into
>CVS.  If Joe is still interested after reading this rant, he can then
>begin working on Unicode support.
>  
>
I am happy to have it as part of the CLucene code base. Please feel free 
to add it. (I think the /wrappers directory would be the correct place 
for it??). If the project is moved to Apache, would you still be happy 
about that? (purely hypothetical at this stage, of course).

As I mentioned earlier, my schedule (as well as reliable access to the 
internet) will become even more prohibiting for the next 6-9 months. I 
haven't been able to devote enough time to the CLucene project, things 
such as creating a proper website for clucene, fixing some of the 
documentation, fixing some of the cross-platform issues on the compile 
farm, as well as making more regular releases. Is there someone that 
might be interested in taking on some of these tasks. CLucene needs a 
bit of a kick to get it running nicely - perhaps there is someone that 
is interested? I am willing to hand over all 'creative rights' - i.e. no 
need to consult about changes. I think this would be better than having 
an administrator (me) that is never available. As for the license, 
especially if Apache is willing to have us, it will be changed over to 
something "Free as infree" and not "free as in compulsory" (as David says).

cheers