Re: GWindows and David Botton

[David Botton <david@botton.com>]

I would join, but regardless of direction, I and others plan on 
continuing development of GWindows, GNATCOM and GNAVI (the Delphi like 
GUI builder I had started).

I would suggest looking at the GMGPL CLAW page on AdaPower 
http://www.adapower.com/claw/ as there is some good materials for a 
CLAW based startup if you decide that direction, ie.
	* Very good examples of using CLAW (Moran)
	* An example of how to put an ActiveX control on to CLAW windows (Myself)

The reason I plan on continuing (and perhaps you should consider before 
making a decision) is:

* There is already a decent install base of GWindows including use in 
traditional and GPL'd apps (of course, I assume in terms of users, CLAW 
has a vastly larger base)
* GWindows for the most part (but not all) is already a _superset_ of 
CLAW both in design and functionality
* Where GMGPL CLAW has more functionality, the code can easily be 
integrated in to GWindows
* GWindows ease of use for teaching GUI programming do to model and good specs
* GWindows shows good Ada design while demonstrating how to be 
practical in design choices instead of Academic, ie. it is "real world"
* GWindows ease of use for programming both very small and very large systems
* GWindows integration of COM/DCOM/ActiveX/.NET using all Ada, no C/C++ 
or MFC code needed (as in ObjectAda or older GWindows releases)
* GWindows integration of Database support
* GWindows design for future integration in to a Delphi like environment
* GWindows offers UNICODE API support out of the box making it a better 
choice for 64 Bit Windows, NT, 2000, XP and Longhorn - ie. the ANSI API 
(and thus CLAW, the thin Win32Ada binding, GWindows ANSI build, etc) 
should only be used where Win9X/ME is a must (and then one should offer 
both binaries).
* GWindows can be used for windows CE programming as well if a cross 
compiler was available
* GWindows has always been MGPL'd and as such has always been very much 
alive even if I was not :-)
* I have and attachment to the FSF's GNU/GPL philosophy and practice 
and want to support such projects. (Despite being a Mr. Windows in the 
Ada world, All of my own work and the majority of programming I do is 
on Linux, Darwin and Mac OS X. GWindows was created to advocate Ada and 
GPL/MGPL _not_ Windows, somehow that point always gets lost in the 
sauce....)

There are many more specific technical reasons on a feature by feature 
basis. There is a lot of  work to bring CLAW to the point where 
GWindows is (I had always hoped on my long absences that in fact CLAW, 
the framework, would have been advanced as I have never looked or 
intended to harm financially those working on CLAW with my efforts, nor 
the feelings of any including yours Stephen despite Windex having also 
been MGPL'd, GWindows grew out of different needs). The areas not 
"bound" by GWindows on the other hand are few and easily added by any 
one familiar with Windows and Ada.

The only reason I noticed for not supporting GWindows as the GNU Ada 
standard was my absences. I'd like to point out a few things:

* Despite my personal absence there has been continued development of 
GWindows by others (although true, I haven't integrated them in to the 
base yet, but they are available)
* There hasn't been much need of support and there has been some peer 
support from others on the GNAVI-List until it broke a few months ago 
(now fixed)
* More than one set of GMGPL'd professional extensions has been made
* The GMGPL Claw version has been around for some time now yet no one 
pushed to extend it, I expect that anything less than a full GMGPL 
version of CLAW will mean the same lethargic response
* CLAW, the framework, hasn't really been updated/extended per se. 
(Note the web page is older than that of GWindows) that despite the 
availability of many of my tools and some examples that could have been 
used with out compromising lic.,etc. (as pointed out by others) to give 
CLAW additional support where GWindows was stronger.

My 2 cents, you would be better off pushing forward with GWindows (as 
GWindows can't see why a name change, etc. is needed either, GWindows 
the (M)GPL'd//GNAT Windows binding for Ada). The code base is already 
there, it is MGPL'd, it has been proven in the real world, there are 
already people working to extend it, fix the few bugs it has had, etc.

David Botton


On 2004-10-04 20:54:39 -0400, Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@acm.org> said:
> Would you be willing to join such a project, as a developer and/or
> architect?