[fpc-pascal] Re: FreePascal as an embedded language in Firebird: possible and desirable?

Jonas Maebe jonas.maebe at elis.ugent.be
Tue Aug 9 17:49:46 CEST 2011


On 09 Aug 2011, at 17:04, Jim wrote:

> 4. I just tried to open up communication and provide a way for both
> sides to communicate and keep track of things.

The problem is that this is generally not how things actually get implemented in open source software. Things get implemented by someone with an interest who writes code/patches, and if this code adds significant new functionality then this person is generally also expected to volunteer to maintain this new code for the foreseeable future. In the specific case of this feature request,
a) adding HP-UX support to FPC will simply not happen unless someone with an interest in that platform submits patches and wants to maintain the platform support.
b) defining the API to use for communicating with Firebird is by definition something that the Firebird people have to do (or someone else who then proposes it to the Firebird people). Once that is done, an RTL for this new API can be written by that same person or someone else with an interested in this project and then added to FPC (which in turn makes turn makes the underlying OS largely irrelevant, except for calling conventions and things like that)
c) this project may depend on other bugs getting fixed in FPC, but the mere existence of this feature request is unlikely to influence how quickly they will actually get fixed

Filing feature requests saying "people of project A and project B, I would love if you got together and somehow integrated your software, adding any missing functionality in the process such as additional platform support" has very little chance of getting anything done. While communication is useful, the basic requirement is someone (or a group of people) that will do the work.


Jonas


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