[Stardata-common-devel] Re: SpaceChart for GNOME 2.x?

[Kevin B. McCarty]

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Miguel Coca wrote:

[Kevin McCarty:]
>>Support for GNOME / GTK+ 1.2 in Debian is getting very sketchy.  Now
>>that even GnuCash, one of the last major holdouts, has moved to GNOME
>>2.x, the current GNOME 1.2 maintainer intends to give up maintenance of
>>those packages [1].  This will put us in a difficult spot with respect
>>to continuing to support SpaceChart, since calls for the complete
>>removal of GNOME 1.2 from Debian are likely only to increase [2].

> Yes, I am aware of the situation.

>>Please do let us know if there is any plan to transition SpaceChart to
>>GTK+ and GNOME 2.

> Okay. As I said, I have no plans for the near future. I wish I had the
> time, but I'm too busy right now. So, if you have to remove it, go
> ahead.

We'll try to keep it available as long as we can.  Without promising
anything, I think SpaceChart will be able to survive into the Etch
release of Debian, planned to occur this December.

Perhaps by then we will have the time to port it to GTK+/GNOME 2
ourselves.  If so, may we do it with your blessing and have the result
considered to be a new official SpaceChart release?  Since it is a GNU
project, I guess we would have to sign over our copyrights on the
changes to FSF?


>>P.S.  On a different topic, did you ever get an official statement from
>>François Ochsenbein regarding the suitability of the CCDM star catalogue
>>for use in Free software?
> 
> 
> Wow, I was pretty sure I had, but I can't find anything. His last
> message to me (Thu, 21 Nov 2002) said:
> 
> "I was not able to get an answer yet -- and I'm currently in India --
> and it's a pity you are waiting for my answer for this. Let me make
> a last try next week -- I'll be back on next Tuesday and otherwise
> just go on with the proper acknowledgements ."
> 
> At some point I tired of waiting, and just released the data. Have you
> tried to contact him?

Not personally, no.

- From his quote, it seems that he gave permission to use it even if he
didn't reply again.  I can ask him again, though.  Do you know if his
address is still <francois at vizir.u-strasbg.fr> ?

By the way, thank you for taking care to document the legal status of
these star catalogues.  I wish that everyone who wrote free software was
as conscientious about such things!

best regards,

- --
Kevin B. McCarty <kmccarty at princeton.edu>   Physics Department
WWW: http://www.princeton.edu/~kmccarty/    Princeton University
GPG: public key ID 4F83C751                 Princeton, NJ 08544
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