Estimated release of GnuPG 1.0.7?

[Olivier Mascia]

Hello,

Werner Koch wrote:

WK> > There is a very large number of excellent quality free software
WK> > engineered to be built successfully on multiple platforms with multiple tools.
WK> 
WK> I am really tired of doing so.  Why should I spend my unpaid time on
WK> doing this instead of simply requiring the use of a POSIX system.  I'd
WK> even like to use some of the nice feature of gcc or glibc, but for the
WK> sake of the other free operating systems I can't do that.

Okay Werner, I wasn't implying that _you_ should do all that. Aren't
there other people working on GnuPG source code or are you essentially
solely responsible for this nice piece of software ?

In most free software development, the teams do split between various
kind of collegues. Often, some are specialized in development /
maintenance of platform or otherwise environmental specific parts of the
code.

If there was even only one more guy, committing to maintaining the
builds on one Windows compiler, you wouldn't have any more problems and
the software would be even more "free", in that people would be free to
choose with what and on what they want to compile it for themselves and
trust it.

Also, but this is only personal experience, source code has always been
better when compiled on many different compilers/environments. Some kind
of bugs can go undetected for months when you use a single development
environment. When regularly producing on various systems, the team can
smash a larger number of plain bugs, quicker.

WK> Frankly, I don't want to get bothered with bugs due to different
WK> compilers, the Cygwin32 thing is troublesome enough.

You're making my point by saying that :-)
If co-maintainers were maintaining the 'other-platforms' specifics, you
wouldn't be bothered by that. If _you_ have to do it all, of course, I
understand it is an added complexity that you deserve not to be forced
into.

WK> > I wasn't specifically thinking of using Microsoft compilers anyway. I do
WK> > not use those on Windows. There are a lot of other compilers.
WK> 
WK> And more and more bug reports.

Of course. But an even better and trustable GnuPG base code as a result.

WK> > Would there be any licensing issue if I took the source code and
WK> > compiled it (fixing any required porting issue) with my liking of tools
WK> > suite under Windows ?
WK> 
WK> Of course not, the GPL is about the source code and not about tools or
WK> data you use on it.

Fine.

WK> However, any changes required for other Windows compilers are unlikely
WK> to go into the standard distribution.

Technically speaking, why not ? (Always making the assumption that not a
single person would have to be responsible for maintenance of all that,
of course).

May I ask how is the development team of GnuPG composed ?
How many different programmers do really master (at least specific
portions) of the code and have commit privilege to the CVS tree ?

Again, thank you very much,
Best regards,
-- 
Olivier Mascia <om@mascia.biz>