Re: Becoming the OS X binary maintainer

Hi, Ian -

I had been the Privoxy OSX maintainer from OSX 10.0 through 10.3.  Once 
OSX 10.4 came out, the platform diverged somewhat - and I wasn't able to 
maintain it any more because I no longer had a platform that supported 
the newer OSes and chip technologies that came next.  Other maintainers 
stepped in from time to time, but we didn't have a lot of continuous 
community support.

Time has cured some of those problems - we can probably assume that most 
folks have 10.5 or above (as I do now), so we don't have to worry a lot 
about the older versions that would require a lot of build trickery. 
The main source code will likely still compile without trouble using the 
gnu C compiler (there is no Objective-C in the project so far as I 
know... at least I never used it while maintaining it).  But of course 
putting Privoxy on the Apple app store is a non-starter since it's Open 
Source.  A .dmg is probably all that most folks need, anyway.

I can help out if you have questions - but all that is really required 
is the ability to put together a current installable package in whatever 
technology Apple is using these days.  And be prepared for it to change 
again soon.

- David

On 11/22/2011 12:19 PM, Fabian Keil wrote:
> Ian Silvester<[email protected]>  wrote:
>
>> I've not idea what I'm taking on by saying this, but as a long time user
>> of Privoxy on OS X I am keen for it to be easily available to the Mac
>> user community and so I'd like to step up to the plate as maintainer of
>> the OS X binary. I am dimly aware that there were disagreements that
>> terminated the creation of the OS X binary some months (years?) ago, so
>> I'll understand if you prefer for the project not to have a supported
>> Mac build.
>
> In general we prefer to support as many platforms as possible.
>
> The "disagreement" you mention is documented at:
> https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=211118&aid=1876629&group_id=11118
>
> In my obviously-biased opinion it was more of a misunderstanding
> than a real disagreement. I was under the impression that we had
> two non-competing Mac OS X packages that appealed to different
> user groups, but one of the packagers apparently didn't.
>
> Unfortunately I was unaware of this until it was too late.
>
> The maintainer of the "competing" package stopped packaging
> due to lack of time, like many packagers did before him.
> No hard feelings there, as far as I know.
>
>> I also have to admit that I have practically zero Objective C experience
>> (I debugged some code for Rixstep's Xfile once) and my C is pretty
>> rusty, but then I guess the interface for the Privoxy Utility is done
>> and dusted so I'm assuming it's mostly a question of compile and package
>> yes?
>
> It depends on what you want to package.
>
> Given that the "Privoxy Utility" is an external application
> (and unlike other tools not even part of the source tarball),
> one can create Privoxy packages without it.
>
> I believe that's what MacPorts and similar sites do.
>
> Given that the creator of the "Privoxy Utility" quit,
> it is also currently unmaintained and may no longer work
> on recent Mac OS X released.
>
> In my personal opinion the feature set of the "Privoxy Utility"
> is rather limited compared to what one gets by combining the
> other Privoxy tools available, but there are certainly other
> users who felt that it worked great for them. BTW, that's true
> for the Windows GUI as well (which unfortunately is not an external
> application).
>
>> Anyway, let me know if this is of interest and I'll dust off Xcode.
>
> I'm reasonable sure that OS X packages would be appreciated.
> Whether or not any users actually could be bothered to thank
> you is another question, but this isn't a Mac-specific issue.
>
> I probably can't help you with Objective C issues, but maybe others can.
> If you encounter any problems with Privoxy itself, I'll certainly try
> to help.
>
> You also may want to ask on the users list what Mac OS X users
> expect from a Privoxy package.
>
> Fabian

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