[Config4gnu-developer] Re: libconf status

[dams <da...@id...>]

Justin Yackoski <ju...@sk...> writes:

> Dams,
> 
> I've got some questions about your libconf layer.  We've made some basic
> modifications and Jason has written a basic translator to convert the
> perl structure to XML (but not the other way around).  I downloaded your
> tarball dated the Oct 25th and it seems to have some diff-like lines in
> the perl.  I was wondering if you could provide a current version of
> libconf, if it has been modified in the last week or so.

There is a cvs repository here:

http://cvsweb.tuxfamily.org/cvs/src/?cvsroot=ugtk

The files to get are:
libconf.pm  <- the lib
test_conf.pl  <- test program
templates <- the direcory containing the templates.

This cvs is too slow, so it will be moved somewhere else, either on sf.net or
on gentoo.org

> 
> Jason wrote a basic converter to XML and I was wondering if you would
> prefer this so that the perl structures can still be used by libconf, or
> if you would accept changes that made libconf natively output XML.

It depends how it's done. xml converter seems fine for now.

>  I'm
> not sure what difference one or the other makes in the end, but its a
> question nonetheless.  We won't spend too much time writing fancy
> translators if you'll soon be going to XML, we'll just do what we need
> to use its basic features.
> 
> A question related to this would then be do you have libconf in CVS
> someplace so that we could check in any changes we make to it?  If you
> don't have it in CVS right now, we can add it to our repository on
> SF.net if you like.  We'd like to help you work on it if thats alright
> with you, since it seems your basic design of libconf works well.

see above

> I also just noticed that libconf is released under the GPL.  Is there
> any particular reason why you chose that over the LGPL, or do you have
> anything against using the LGPL?  We had chosen the LGPL so that other
> software (commercial or otherwise) could use CFG, but I don't pretend to
> fully understand the whole licensing mess.  My basic understanding is
> that the LGPL is less restrictive but maybe you have some insight from
> working w/ Mandrake.

I think LGPL is not that good, because it allows people to use your work
without give back to you or the community. The fact that the GPL is viral is
something I actually like :)