Future of Lazarus / FreePascal

[Leledumbo]

After few years I even didn't notice how could anybody not part of core team could contribute to documentation.

It's the same as the code: post a patch to the bugtracker for the changes you've made. It would be moderated before decided to be applied.

I know that there is something as fpdoc but in my understanding documentation is not free to contribute similar to wiki.

Real documentation can't be compared to wiki. Any changes to it should be checked for correctness before applied. This is IMHO, but I guess the core dev team has similar thought. It's actually free to contribute just like the code, simply attach a patch to the bugtracker. Done.

[Chronos]

Just a little thought:
"If writing patch and sending it to moderators would be necessary to be able to add and modify wiki content then really not many wiki articles contributed by community members would be created at all. This applies also to forum."

[Leledumbo]

Yep, wiki and forum have their own functionality, and so does the real documentation.

[marcov]

I think the lazarus situation is simply the best that can be done without a dedicated person/team behind the documentation. In these kind of discussions, most people always put tools first, and only then manpower. (just use tool XXX, and documentation people will come in droves).

I feel some bitterness in your words.

More tiredness of the same old discussions. It is always the tools, and always the public write access, and never anything else.  And always if you change it "they will come", IOW heaps of good quality content will fall from thin air, while no sane person could have done without

All experiments in the past however point to the exact opposite, and pointing that out is deemed old-fashioned and negative.  Moreover, the division line is usually between actual contributors and wannabe contributors.

Situation is never best and always something could be done better. You have to be open minded

Open minded and optimism doesn't mean be believing  in miracles (and worse, acting in the hope that they will happen. It is one thing to buy a lottery ticket, it is another to quit your job before you won)

We understand that there are some physical limits with the project like this. But grow is not possible without some particular changes which you doesn't want to admit.

That is solely an opinion. And not one much based in fact.

You think that effective tools are not important but all others think opposite. For community project where people devote their free time to the project tools are really important. Wrong tools could slow down development significantly.

I say they are currently not the bottleneck that many people believe it to be.

And what we want? To do much boring work or achieve goal in most effective way?

Yes, because that is what documentation in principle is. Boring work. Dressing it up doesn't fix that.

Another problem is community coordination. This can't be done without proper tools for sure. Just take mediawiki, this is simplest way to contribute to project after forum and users are contributing everyday. What about documentations? After few years I even didn't notice how could anybody not part of core team could contribute to documentation.

Well, apparently you have simply not cared. We accept pretty much everything as input.

I know that there is something as fpdoc but in my understanding documentation is not free to contribute similar to wiki.

Yes. Most documentation of serious projects aren't. If not, Show me where I can edit the python main reference without any credentials. Or the Java SDK documentation.
Or MSDN?

All for good reasons.

 

[Chronos]

Yes. Most documentation of serious projects aren't. If not, Show me where I can edit the python main reference without any credentials. Or the Java SDK documentation.
Or MSDN?

You want compare apples and pears? You named mostly money driven projects by Microsoft, Sun/Oracle or even Python foundation which have big donors and evidently they have much better success event they have to build community from zero in comparison to free pascal where community members are mostly old turbo pascal or delphi or apple pascal coders.

Yep, Python is another good example where active future of free pascal could be and how to remain free & open source and yet as foundation receive money support. Development definitely cost time and money. But difference between free & open source and commercial software could be that you have to pay for every single copy of commercial project but you need just pay one time development and use many copies of FOSS.

If you want to stick without official foundation and still motivate users then project should ease work to be more effective and less time consuming with better automation. In terms of less boring office work and more real effective work. It could be done in many ways. Although I am not Git fan, Git is real example how community could work for example on Linux kernel. If anonymous user content cannot be allowed directly to trunk branch then users could make their forks and their useful changes which would meet official branch quality criteria could be merged to main branch. It is matter of attitude.
Either you expect 100% quality patches and this will could be hardly achieved with project like this or you could allow somehow quality improvement in time.

Even you are here already as one who have long time experiences and just try to clarify to us how wrong our opinion is, I saw this discussion helpful as I realize which direction project should proceed to be able to offer similar features and quality as similar project like python. Or to be able to deliver similar experience as with Delphi RAD Studio. I see that better than changing child of someone else it is better to start another project with different approach. I could use already existed languages and tools but I am not aware of any which would meet my general expectations.
Future is bright for sure

[marcov]

Yes. Most documentation of serious projects aren't. If not, Show me where I can edit the python main reference without any credentials. Or the Java SDK documentation.
Or MSDN?

You want compare apples and pears? You named mostly money driven projects by Microsoft, Sun/Oracle or even Python foundation which have big donors and evidently they have much better success event they have to build community from zero in comparison to free pascal where community members are mostly old turbo pascal or delphi or apple pascal coders.

It was an exaggerated example of course. But name any mature project that has the documentation world writable.

Yep, Python is another good example where active future of free pascal could be and how to remain free & open source and yet as foundation receive money support.

They don't get money because they have a foundation. They have a foundation because they get money. (IOW for the tax deduction for non-profit)

Development definitely cost time and money. But difference between free & open source and commercial software could be that you have to pay for every single copy of commercial project but you need just pay one time development and use many copies of FOSS.

We all know FOSS theory. I'm concerned with the practice here. 

If you want to stick without official foundation and still motivate users then project should ease work to be more effective and less time consuming with better automation. In terms of less boring office work and more real effective work. It could be done in many ways

The problem is that you assume that people that do no work now will do something in the future. And to prove your point (right or wrong) means a massive investment first.

. Although I am not Git fan, Git is real example how community could work for example on Linux kernel. If anonymous user content cannot be allowed directly to trunk branch then users could make their forks and their useful changes which would meet official branch quality criteria could be merged to main branch. It is matter of attitude.

Yes. Like now patches are done in the bugtracker, and for larger changes people already get write access (only on your first branch). Like with documentation,
your ignorance of the real possibilities NOW shows here again.  This makes it really, really hard to believe your argumentation, that your prognosis of the
future with different tools is correct.

Either you expect 100% quality patches and this will could be hardly achieved with project like this or you could allow somehow quality improvement in time.

So, go ahead. Nobody said you should do it ok, but if it is 40% ok, people WILL help you. The point is simply START, and don't blame it on tools, openness etc. Those are
just excuses.

[Chronos]

It would be good to have unified address for wiki. Just setup full redirection from http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/ to http://wiki.freepascal.org/. Luckily google is enough mature to be able to recognize this duplicity. But in forum there is mess with links and you have to login twice from different urls to single mediawiki installation to be able to modify content.

[JuhaManninen]

If you want to stick without official foundation and still motivate users then project should ease work to be more effective and less time consuming with better automation. In terms of less boring office work and more real effective work. It could be done in many ways. Although I am not Git fan, Git is real example how community could work for example on Linux kernel. If anonymous user content cannot be allowed directly to trunk branch then users could make their forks and their useful changes which would meet official branch quality criteria could be merged to main branch. It is matter of attitude.
Either you expect 100% quality patches and this will could be hardly achieved with project like this or you could allow somehow quality improvement in time.

You can already make Lazarus changes using Git, and even use the distributed model. It is documented here:
 http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Creating_A_Patch#Using_a_forked_Git_repository_directly

This is more and more empty whining now. The fact is that you could easily create and improve documentation IF you wanted, but you don't want.
I understand you, it is boring and laborious work. Most programmers prefer doing something else.
But why you keep whining here instead of directing the energy into constructive things?
You already made some patches. Keep on making more, that would be constructive.

The whole wiki pages should also be cleaned. It shows the typical problem of wiki: it is unorganized.
Some topics could be reorganized, duplicate info combined and outdated data removed. It is a psychological thing that nobody dares to remove wiki contents made by others because it may be important or the author may get angry. So, there is lots of duplicate and old data.
There is nobody assigned for this task. Somebody should "assign himself" for it. You maybe?

And yeah, there are many other things to improve but somebody just has to do them. I don't think the tools are the limiting factor here.


Regards,
Juha

[felipemdc]

If you want to stick without official foundation

Believe me, if there was any company wanting to donate real money (like 10k+ a year) to the project, I would have already done a foundation a long time ago. But let's go back to reality: There aren't any.

In my city even jobs with Delphi are very rare. With FPC are non-existant. Java and .net dominate, with C++ coming third. Python jobs are very rare too.

But despite all that yes, it is an important missing task to register a foundation and we know it is a to-do. Volunteers to achieve it are welcome.

[Chronos]

You can already make Lazarus changes using Git, and even use the distributed model. It is documented here:
 http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Creating_A_Patch#Using_a_forked_Git_repository_directly

This doesn't solve a problem. It only add even more complexity and more time would be spent on synchronization and merging. It would be usable for someone who want to make Lazarus/FPC fork and do some conceptual changes which would be never included to trunk. Distributed VCS could be useful for offline development too.
I was talking more about process and organization concept itself. When some wish arise in community you would probably answer something like that one can have to do it by himself as core team time is precious. This apply to potential developers too. Also they use only some spare time if possible and everybody want to devote time to their project. Then process have to be speed up if possible. It could help, it will not solve world problems.

And I didn't find link to git repository on github on that wiki page. Only something like http://wiki.freepascal.org/git_mirrors

This is more and more empty whining now. The fact is that you could easily create and improve documentation IF you wanted, but you don't want.
I understand you, it is boring and laborious work. Most programmers prefer doing something else.

I didn't write that I want to improve documentation. But I agree that it should be improved. Not only by hard work but also by change in concept and better automation using more effective tools. Much can be improved indeed.

But why you keep whining here instead of directing the energy into constructive things?
You already made some patches. Keep on making more, that would be constructive.

Of course, after four years of trying to use fpc/lazarus instead of Delphi I am now in crossroad. And I have to decide which direction to go now. Maybe I was hope that with Lazarus 1.0 something would change significantly. Maybe I was hoping that 4 years ago in dark times then there was no Embarcadero Delphi yet, that Lazarus/FPC is right direction. But after few years some project parts didn't changed at all. And yes, my first pascal experience was even with some old pascal interpretter running on some 8-bit computer with Z80 CPU, and then very nice Turbo Pascal 5-7, even more complex but also more powerful object pascal and delphi language and mighty RAD IDE. And I didn't find better replacement so far. Every language and associated platform/company have some real problem. Either you have to pay lot of money, or it is usable only for some special applications, or it is not multiplatform and not running on linux and other systems, or it have weird cryptic syntax, or something else is bad. And world is moving forward with these tablets, smartphones, smarttv or maybe smart fridge or car control panel.
It is more about concept and coordination. What we need. How product should be. For what it would be used. Is pascal only learning language or it can serve for building great products. Or just stick with lazarus and give 80% of my time to fix and work on project which cannot be really usable for big products.

The whole wiki pages should also be cleaned. It shows the typical problem of wiki: it is unorganized.
Some topics could be reorganized, duplicate info combined and outdated data removed. It is a psychological thing that nobody dares to remove wiki contents made by others because it may be important or the author may get angry. So, there is lots of duplicate and old data.
There is nobody assigned for this task. Somebody should "assign himself" for it. You maybe?

Yes, wiki content is not really enough organized. I occasionally check some other great wikis and I see many aspects which could be improved.
For example it would be good to allow users to create page collections to be able to create wiki books which would be exported to PDF or ODT. It would allow to create up-to-date community made FPC and Lazarus book.
Another problem is multilanguage support. Mediawiki supports two basic concepts and both needs to do some arrangements to work right. Now search function work bad with multilanguage pages. It is not possible now to search english only pages and it is bad.
During passed years I was dare to work on category organization with aim that every page should have at least one category. Soon it was clear that categorization collide with multilingual pages and then multilanguage categories was necessary to introduce. But then there is still some mess with parallel multilingual category structure.
I don't think that there is many duplicated or old pages what should be removed. There are some temporary pages used for project coordination but nobody dare to delete that as one can be banned for such activity. Who will decide what should remain and what should be deleted?
And another story is main wiki page. It should be definitely changed to be more practical and more community friendly. I tried to create alternative main page but without visible response. But there is also independent fpc wiki so some information are duplicate to fpc wiki. So this is mainly about decisions of people who have administration access to wiki. Nothing what could be achieved with limited user access.

And yeah, there are many other things to improve but somebody just has to do them. I don't think the tools are the limiting factor here.

Classic problem. Tools are not problem. Management is not problem. Finance are not problem. Just only users are too passive and not responsible . This should be their fault

[Chronos]

Believe me, if there was any company wanting to donate real money (like 10k+ a year) to the project, I would have already done a foundation a long time ago. But let's go back to reality: There aren't any.

In my city even jobs with Delphi are very rare. With FPC are non-existant. Java and .net dominate, with C++ coming third. Python jobs are very rare too.

But despite all that yes, it is an important missing task to register a foundation and we know it is a to-do. Volunteers to achieve it are welcome.

It is problem of chicken and egg. But it should work in following order. Invest time and money to develop product => then maybe products would be made with it and maybe jobs would arise. Create foundation and then money could come from subscription. Yes, another possibility is better management and keep payed task list on web, something like bounty but more with conceptual tasks like if we receive 5000 EUR then we assure implementation of Gtk3, possibly hire some freelancers.
Yes, it should be discussed and aims should be proposed. We could either quit our well payed jobs or we could fund project development to someone else be able to work on.

[Nebula]

In my city even jobs with Delphi are very rare. With FPC are non-existant. Java and .net dominate, with C++ coming third. Python jobs are very rare too.

I'd bet that a very large proportion of Java and .net apps are quite simple forms-based affairs, using standard controls and talking to a SQL server. Surely that's something that Laz./FPC can do too?

The main problem is the herd mentality, devs going only where the masses go and fearing to tread in unchartered territory. And employability - the average dev wants skills that look good on the CV, to protect their future employment prospects. Pascal faces a near impossible task to compete with that.

The niche that I see FPC occupying is for a totally free dev toolchain for HOBBY programmers, on the whole. I still believe (until I'm ever corrected) that it has so many positive things going for it, it is unmatched in its specialist areas. As time goes on, it may slowly chip away at the mainstream players' marketshare if an increasing number of pro devs realise that they can cut costs by working with free tools, but I won't hold my breath on that one.

I think Lazarus&FPC is a remarkable achievement so far, and look forward to seeing more success as time goes by.

[JuhaManninen]

And I didn't find link to git repository on github on that wiki page. Only something like http://wiki.freepascal.org/git_mirrors

Yes, it is the right page. Did you not understand what it says?

Classic problem. Tools are not problem. Management is not problem. Finance are not problem. Just only users are too passive and not responsible . This should be their fault

Maybe you don't understand it but you are accusing the people who actually do something for the project. It feels ... well, irritating.
Marco is a "user". I am a "user". Martin is a "user". Mattias, Felipe etc, they are all "users". The difference is that these "users" decided to do something instead of whining.
This is volunteer work for all the developers. At one point every developer has came to the project, seen many errors and missing features, then complained (including me) for a while but then decided to improve things because empty whining is so stupid.
Then this new-born "developer" thinks he is doing a good thing but no, there comes a whiner telling that he is not doing enough.
It is especially bad if the whiner has not done a single line of code or documentation himself. You have done some, your situation is not that bad.
Maybe you stop whining and you become the next Juha or Marco or even Mattias if you keep very busy. 

Your ideas about the foundation and lots of money are just wishful thinking. Anybody can already donate money. The foundation does not really make it easier. It helps with taxes and other legal issues but that is different.
Do you seriously think that money starts flooding after putting up a foundation?

So, if you have an "itch" then "scratch" it. For example you can improve the documentation tools.
The only things that you cannot change are the main pages of the project and the wiki. I cannot change them either.
They need improvement, I am planning to raise this issue soon.

Juha

[Fred vS]

The only things that you cannot change are the main pages of the project and the wiki. I cannot change them either.

Ho, that is sad, i really hope that, one day, a "Multimedia" section will be added in the forum page. 

But that is a other story.

[JanRoza]

I fully agree with Juha's comment.
All this negative whining for a product which already is very good. Of course there are lots of things that still can - and have to - be improved, but compared to other freeware programming solutions I think Lazarus/FPC is way ahead.
Anyone is entitled to his own opinion but I feel here criticism is turning to become personal and that's bad. The volunteers working on this project have done a marvelous job for a long, long time now (many other projects died long before because of waning interest of the volunteers).
In my opinion the current crew of the Lazarus/FPC projects should be complimented on their perseverance and enthusiasm instead of being personally attacked.
Just my personal opinion.