Re: Becoming the OS X binary maintainer

Thanks both,

That's all good advice and I'm sure I'll have questions as I get amongst it. For now I'll subscribe to the relevant lists and do some canvassing of opinion.

I'll be in touch,

Ian


On 2011-11-22, at 1:41 PM, David Schmidt wrote:

> 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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