[Pkg-running-devel] forerunner 310xt support for garmin-ant-downlaoder

[Ralf Treinen]

Hi Kristof,

my opinion on this :

On Mon, Oct 07, 2013 at 04:32:51PM +0200, kristof.ralovich at gmail.com wrote:

> When I started working towards this in my free-time around 2010, there was no
> working Linux tool to download tracks from my Forerunner 310XT. So ANT+minus
> was born ([2]) and this year it became stable enough that I thought sharing it
> was justified.
> 
> On the other hand Debian already has a very similar package,
> garmin-ant-downloader (g-a-d), that covers downloading tracks from the
> Forerunner 405. Here it is worth to mention that the 405 and 310XT use
> different messages over the ANT protocol. The former uses a dialect of ANT+,
> while the latter uses standard ANT-FS. Currently g-a-d implements parts of
> ANT+, while ANT+minus implements most of ANT-FS. Thus I would like to enhance
> g-a-d with ANT-FS implementation from my ANT+minus project.
> 
> My integration plan would be to "fuse" the functionality of antpm into g-a-d,
> and have a single package/single executable that deals with FR405/FR310 (or
> other watches that use the same ANT variants). What I would really like to
> avoid is end-users having two packages with same functionality, just working on
> different GPS watches! Original gant is unmaintained (last commit from 2011
> [3]) and without dedicated upstream developers (as far as i can tell, correct
> me if i'm wrong). The package name g-a-d on the other hand is just perfect, it
> described what the software stands for, no ambiguity. Furthermore g-a-d already
> has a simple python gui that i would like to extend for ANT-FS downloads too.

I agree that the way to go is to create a unified project that provides
downloading capabilities for several watches, and to fuse your work with
garmin-ant-downloader. Your write that the g-a-d project is currently 
unmmaintained - did you try to contact the g-a-d maintainers to discuss
with them? I think you should first make an attempt to contact them and
give them a chance to react. If you don't get any answer from them in a 
reasonable time, or even if they reply but are not interested in a
cooperation, then you can just go ahead with a fork. But you should at
least try.

> After all this said, I have the following questions to you:
> - Do you agree with my plans to extend g-a-d with ANT-FS functionality, and
> thus download capability from more GPS devices.

You should first try to get this settled upstream with the g-a-d maintainers.
There are two possible outcomes : either you join forces with the g-a-d
maintainers and create a common tool, or you do your own fork of g-a-d.
Once this is decided (and up to that point debian has no say in this)
we can work on the debian packaging. In case the old g-a-d maintainers
are not interested in a cooperation we might just switch to your fork.

> - I'm offering my help to co-maintain g-a-d, and provide patches! Is anyone in
> this group willing to incorporate my patches against g-a-d?

Help on maintaining the debian package(s) would certainly be appreciated.
I myself use still an old Forerunner 205, so I cannot be of much assistance
for the g-a-d package, but there are others on this list who own newer
hardware.

> - What is the preferred way to provide patches for g-a-d? (send patch to
> mailing list or provide branch for merging)

If you want to help with packaging then the best would be to create an
account on alioth, ask for inclusion in the pkg-running group,
and provide patches as branch in the git.

Cheers -Ralf.