Re: [OctDev] Octave-forge Development

[Teemu I. <tpi...@pc...>]

On 11/06/04 11:14, Mark P. Esplin wrote:
> I am trying to figure out how octave-forge development works.  For the main 
> part of octave, John Eaton set's the direction, adds patches etc., but how 
> about for octave-forge?  When I look at the "Octave-forge developer's guide" 
> at http://octave.sourceforge.net/ it has instructions for adding modules to 
> octave-forge. Does each module's author maintain the module?  I probably 
> don't have the ability or the time to add major modules to octave-forge, but 
> I can do some bug-fixes, documentation, etc.  How would I go about doing 
> that? 

Octave-forge development is not very coordinated. Usually each author
maintains his/her own modules, but others are free to fix bugs, especially
when they're related to the build system or brokennes caused by the core
Octave changes. I think CVS commit access is given to anyone who wants it,
you just have to ask. The other option is to mail patches to the maintainer
of the module in question.

> > From: "Tom G. Smith (Smitty)" <sm...@kc...>
> > To: he...@oc...
> 
> > I've gotten octave-forge to compile and install on octave 2.1.57,
> > but I'm not at all sure I have anything more than compiled garbage.
> > I had to make numerous source code changes, some of which were
> > correcting simple typographical errors, so I know this code has never
> > been successfully compiled and tested.
> 
> Some things in octave-forge work very well. It is a shame for the whole system 
> to be judged by the parts that don't work.

Octave and octave-forge are not very coordinated with each other either. The
core Octave is that much of a moving target, that the versions usually need
to be in sync. The version requirements can usually be found on the release
notes. I've just today compiled CVS checkout of octave-forge on a
CVS version of Octave and the sequence 
./autogen.sh; ./configure; make; make install; 
worked with no problems what so ever.

On the other hand, if one wants some get some work done instead of compiling
the bleeding edge stuff from CVS, I recommend the excellent Debian packages
of Octave and octave-forge.

Teemu