[Pkg-octave-devel] Re: [OctDev] compiling o-f against 2.1.72

[Quentin Spencer]

Rafael Laboissiere wrote:

>* Michael Creel <michael.creel at uab.es> [2005-11-23 15:46]:
>
>  
>
>>I have had some trouble getting o-f CVS to compile against Octave 
>>2.1.72. Has anyone else had problems? Michael
>>    
>>
>
>This is a belated reply but, indeed, compilation of octave-forge fails
>miserably in my Debian unstable system with the latest version of octave.
>
>Question to the octave-forge crew: are there any plans to release a new
>version of octave-forge compatible with Octave 2.1.72?
>  
>

I had just been wondering the same thing. As far as I can tell, it looks 
like we've reached a point where it's time to branch octave-forge. The 
current aging release of octave-forge compiles with octave 2.1.72, but 
not 2.9.4. The CVS doesn't compile with 2.9.4, and apparently (I haven't 
tried it) not with 2.1.72 either. It doesn't compile with 2.9.4 because 
the sparse stuff conflicts with the sparse stuff that's now in octave 
2.9.x, but it compiles if the sparse directory is disabled. Furthermore, 
there are some functions like print.m that have been included in octave 
that are no longer necessary in octave-forge. I think octave-forge needs 
a little house cleaning and a new release, perhaps two: a 2.9.x 
compatible branch and a 2.1.x compatible branch. Has anyone kept track 
of what has been added to octave that can be removed from octave-forge? 
I'm not sufficiently familiar with CVS to know how to create branches. 
How does one go about doing that?

I ought to raise one further question: what's the future of 
octave-forge? It seems like the new package system will result in it 
eventually going away, with things either being absorbed into octave or 
into smaller, more manageable packages. Until then, who's in charge of 
octave-forge? It seems like Paul doesn't have the time he used to for 
this--does it make sense to designate some other project leader(s) (I am 
not volunteering)?

-Quentin