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comp.lang.ruby

innaccurate/misleading portrayal of project on rubyforge

Thursday

4/24/2005 9:25:00 AM

This gui toolkit comparison page (last edited August 2004) at
rubyforge.org states that ruby bindings for wxWindows (now wxWidgets)
could not be found--it says "Could not find one" to be exact:

http://freeride.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?GUIFrameworkProject/GUI...

But according to this page (found by google), wxRuby project started in
September 2002 with the first public release about a year later and the
latest release about 5 months ago:

http://wxruby.rubyforge.org/wi...

I'm sure this was an unintentional oversite on the comparison chart, but
it probably makes at least some visitors view that page as full of
biased and misleading info.

Perhaps some credibility can be restored by backing up claims about 'API
elegance', speed, memory footprint, etc. with specific examples.

Also, I just downloaded wxWidgets 2.6.0 and compiled an example program
using DialogBlocks 1.9.4 which ended up being < 1MB in size on Windows
2000...I was expecting something several times that size given the
comparison to FOX on the comparison page...

I wonder what I'll find if I compare the 'API elegance' of each GUI
toolkit given this pattern so far...especially since that is far more
subjective than whether a project exists or the relative memory footprint.

I don't think this kind of mistake accurately portrays the cooperative
and honest spirit of the ruby community. In addition to correcting the
page, perhaps the kind folks at rubyforge would think of something nice
they can do for wxruby and wxWidgets projects to make up for this unjust
portrayal. Like mentioning licensing terms of each (FOX having the most
unfriendly toward closed-source commercial projects, FLTK being less
restrictive, and wxWidgets having the least restrictive license in this
regard).

DISCLAIMER: by FOX, I mean FOX TOOLKIT, not the cable news channel.
8 Answers

gabriele renzi

4/24/2005 9:57:00 AM

0

Thursday ha scritto:
<snip>
> I don't think this kind of mistake accurately portrays the cooperative
> and honest spirit of the ruby community. In addition to correcting the
> page, perhaps the kind folks at rubyforge ...

I guess that page is just old, but if you feel something is wrong you
should stand up and fix it, it is a wiki ;)

Gavin Kistner

4/24/2005 3:33:00 PM

0

On Apr 24, 2005, at 3:59 AM, gabriele renzi wrote:

> Thursday ha scritto:
> <snip>
>> I don't think this kind of mistake accurately portrays the
>> cooperative and honest spirit of the ruby community. In addition to
>> correcting the page, perhaps the kind folks at rubyforge ...
>
> I guess that page is just old, but if you feel something is wrong you
> should stand up and fix it, it is a wiki ;)

And while you're at it, ensure that
http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?ComparingGuiToolki...
is accurate, too.
--
(-, /\ \/ / /\/

Curt Hibbs

4/24/2005 4:12:00 PM

0

gabriele renzi wrote:
> Thursday ha scritto:
> <snip>
>
>> I don't think this kind of mistake accurately portrays the cooperative
>> and honest spirit of the ruby community. In addition to correcting the
>> page, perhaps the kind folks at rubyforge ...
>
>
> I guess that page is just old, but if you feel something is wrong you
> should stand up and fix it, it is a wiki ;)

That page is definitely old. It was created (by someone whose name I
don't recall) at the beginning of the FreeRIDE project when FreeRIDE was
trying to decide what GUI toolkit to use (wxWindows, now wxWidgets, fit
the requirements the best, but did not have any Ruby bindings). There
probably haven't been many updates since it was originally written, but
as Gabriele pointed out, it is a wiki, so please feel free to make any
needed corrections.

Curt

Richard Lyman

4/24/2005 6:28:00 PM

0

On 4/24/05, Thursday <nospam@nospam.nospam.nospam.nospam.org> wrote:

<snip>

>
> I don't think this kind of mistake accurately portrays the cooperative
> and honest spirit of the ruby community. In addition to correcting the
> page, perhaps the kind folks at rubyforge would think of something nice
> they can do for wxruby and wxWidgets projects to make up for this unjust
> portrayal.

They already do more than most for almost everybody...

> Like mentioning licensing terms of each (FOX having the most
> unfriendly toward closed-source commercial projects, FLTK being less
> restrictive, and wxWidgets having the least restrictive license in this
> regard).
>
> DISCLAIMER: by FOX, I mean FOX TOOLKIT, not the cable news channel.
>
>

Along the lines of being careful about the 'spin' placed on statements
- your comments, as well as any other 'critical looks at licenses',
should link to the pages from the respective authors explaining their
license, since _some_ consider the FOX and FXRuby licenses to be very
friendly toward closed-source commercial projects. Also stating that
FLTK is less restrictive than FOX is a bit misleading since they are
both LGPL and both have an extra clause to allow for static relinking.
Yes, FLTK allows static linking of modified copies, where FOX does not
- my point being that some wouldn't find that restrictive. Everyone
needs to develop their own opinion (business or personal) about what
toolkit is best for their situation.

In the end I'd encourage anyone interested to simply go to the source
for each toolkit and make up your own mind...

FOX license:
http://www.fox-toolkit.org/li...

wxWidgets license:
http://www.wxwidgets.org/ne...

FLTK FAQ entry about license:
http://www.fltk.org/articles.php?L364+I0...

-Rich

Sander Jansen

4/28/2005 2:19:00 PM

0

http://freeride.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?GUIFrameworkProject/GUI...

Hmmm, never seen so much crap on that page, since somebody added that
nonsense about the licensing.

Sander


Richard Lyman wrote:
> On 4/24/05, Thursday <nospam@nospam.nospam.nospam.nospam.org> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> >
> > I don't think this kind of mistake accurately portrays the
cooperative
> > and honest spirit of the ruby community. In addition to correcting
the
> > page, perhaps the kind folks at rubyforge would think of something
nice
> > they can do for wxruby and wxWidgets projects to make up for this
unjust
> > portrayal.
>
> They already do more than most for almost everybody...
>
> > Like mentioning licensing terms of each (FOX having the most
> > unfriendly toward closed-source commercial projects, FLTK being
less
> > restrictive, and wxWidgets having the least restrictive license in
this
> > regard).
> >
> > DISCLAIMER: by FOX, I mean FOX TOOLKIT, not the cable news channel.
> >
> >
>
> Along the lines of being careful about the 'spin' placed on
statements
> - your comments, as well as any other 'critical looks at licenses',
> should link to the pages from the respective authors explaining their
> license, since _some_ consider the FOX and FXRuby licenses to be very
> friendly toward closed-source commercial projects. Also stating that
> FLTK is less restrictive than FOX is a bit misleading since they are
> both LGPL and both have an extra clause to allow for static
relinking.
> Yes, FLTK allows static linking of modified copies, where FOX does
not
> - my point being that some wouldn't find that restrictive. Everyone
> needs to develop their own opinion (business or personal) about what
> toolkit is best for their situation.
>
> In the end I'd encourage anyone interested to simply go to the source
> for each toolkit and make up your own mind...
>
> FOX license:
> http://www.fox-toolkit.org/li...
>
> wxWidgets license:
> http://www.wxwidgets.org/ne...
>
> FLTK FAQ entry about license:
> http://www.fltk.org/articles.php?L364+I0...
>
> -Rich

Sander Jansen

4/28/2005 2:39:00 PM

0

And more crap by the same person....

http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?ComparingGuiToolki...

Lyle Johnson

4/28/2005 2:52:00 PM

0

On 4/28/05, Sander Jansen <s.jansen@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hmmm, never seen so much crap on that page, since somebody added that
> nonsense about the licensing.

Like anything you read on a Wiki, you have to take things with a grain
of salt (sometimes, a whole shaker full).

It's very clear that "Thursday" (the anonymous poster who started this
thread) has a chip on his shoulder and so in order to correct the
probably unintentional mistakes he saw in the description of wxRuby,
he decided to throw in some intentional FUD about FOX on the Wiki
(also anonymously).

For anyone who's interested in the facts, please just go to the
source. There's a page at the FOX Web site (see
http://www.fox-toolkit.com/li... ) that describes the FOX
license in detail. It is a combination of the standard LGPL and an
addendum that relaxes some of the more restrictive elements of the
basic LGPL; in particular, point 2(d) of the license addendum makes it
clear that "... subclassing from objects or widgets supplied by the
library involves no modifications to the source code of the library
itself, and does not constitute creating a modified copy based on the
library."

Sy

4/29/2005 12:30:00 AM

0

Once the wiki mindset hits more people, such issues will become less
of a problem. Instead of ranting on some mailing list, a note on that
wiki page itself would have proven much more effective. Although such
a note would be considered insultingly lazy, it would get some
attention.

Of course, doing the research to provide good links and helping to
update the page would help.. or pointing people to a better comparison
page.

I mean, heck.. my own usergroup's wiki has information that will
become more and more innacurate as time goes by. A simple "hey, your
out of date" would probably spur the half an hours worth of work it
would take to bring a topic completely back into order.


Of course, instead of my writing all this crap.. I could have gone to
update the page myself, and at least make the thing more presentable.
Oh well..