Re: [be] Bibledit 4.0 packaged for Ubuntu - testing requested

[Teus Benschop]

On Sun, 2009-12-27 at 00:29 -0800, Jonathan Marsden wrote:
> I've just uploaded new test packages of Bibledit 4.0 to the
> developer-testing PPA at
> 
>   https://launchpad.net/~pkgcrosswire/+archive/developer-testing/

First of all: thanks for building the package! This will benefit a lot
of people.

I there's anything you need to insert or change in bibledit's
documentation about this package, I've sent you an invitation with write
permission on the Google Site for bibledit.

> 
> (1) A lot seems to have changed since BE 3.8, including a build-time
> requirement for an ssh binary in the $PATH which does not seem to have
> been documented in README or INSTALL files.  (Why is this needed and
> being checked for at build time, rather than at run time?).  This makes
> me a little nervous, and leaves me wondering if any other new
> requirements exist that I may have missed :)

I must admit that ssh is not used directly by bibledit. I have removed
it from the build time checking, so this will be visible in the next
release.

ssh is mentioned in the online help:

http://sites.google.com/site/bibledit/system/app/pages/search?q=ssh&scope=search-site

The user may have to use it to set up a secure repository for
collaboration on the Bible text Bibledit does not use it, but it does
use, however, the secure version of git, and git in turn uses ssh.

Bibledit's policy is to check at build time for any the binaries that
ever could be needed. Any dependencies would be documented in the source
of the build time checker, which is a file configure.ac in the root of
the package. If these are covered, then it would be fine.

> 
> (2) I think Teus has recently mentioned a new dependency on Apache, but
> in my (very superficial) testing I can run Bibledit 4.0 without apache
> being on my machine, never mind actually running.  The only C++ source
> file I could find the string "Apache" in is mainwindow.cpp, and that is
> only in some comments at the end of the file that seem to be more design
> notes (or ideas for the future?) than anything specific.  So I'm not
> sure what sort of dependency this really is, and whether the Bibledit
> 4.x packages should do anything to encourage or force the user to
> install Apache when installing Bibledit.  Exactly how dependent is
> Bibledit on Apache?  What exactly breaks when BE is installed without
> Apache, and how badly does it break?  Is this dependency documented
> somewhere?

Bibledit version 4.0 does not yet use Apache or any other compatible web
server. Next versions will. At the time of writing this the interprocess
communication between bibledit, Xiphos, BibleTime, go through a message
queue maintained on the local web server. Work is being done that the
regular calling of "git" for collaboration on Bibles will go through
that server also. For the same reason php will be required also, but I
don't know yet of any reliable method to test php support in Apache from
a configure script.
In version 4.1 the following will break when Apache is not there:
- No references synchronisation between bibledit, xiphos, bibletime.
- No collaboration possible between members of a team.
The dependency is not documented anywhere apart from in the installation
documents online.

Thanks for the work done,

Teus.

> 
> So, if some of you who really *use* Bibledit on Ubuntu could please test
> these packages out, that would really help boost my confidence in them
> before I "make this official" and put these packages in the main
> CrossWire Packaging Team repository, and request that they be officially
> uploaded into Debian Testing and (synced from there into) Ubuntu Lucid.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jonathan
> 
> 
>