Dear Mike,
many thanks for your answer.
I've read who are the authors of this high quality and complex project,
my interest is only in maintaining plotutils usable, since it is important for my job.
I think that GNU and the free software community should take care of
project like this, otherwise a lot of people could be diverted to similar ones
but proprietary and closed source projects.
It is NOT my intention to create a fork or a clone of plotutils,
i'd rather use it in my application projects.
Today i updated the automake build system of the original plotutils 2.6,
that gave errors in case you tried to create an updated configure
script with
autoreconf -vi
i have just updated the Makefile.am in the subdirs
following current automake instructions
(automake has been updated since 2009).
If ever someone wants to try my updates,
There are more than one project that uses plotutils,
for instance, python "biggles" SIP library compiles and uses plotutils libplot, but
i have seen that creates png output files using gs,
for GNU/Linux debian/ubuntu (and others) plotutils 2.6 binaries
are ok but for other platforms compiling is needed.
I will keep open in public my maintenance products, under the GPLv3 license.
Kind Regards,
Francesco Lazzarotto.
Francesco-
In terms of maintainership, I believe RSM is the maintainer, but, it
is true that he has not put in too much work over the last few years.
I would love to see a new release of plotutils to that it builds
from source. I've kept my own personal fork of it for years.
Ideally RSM might concede that fresh maintainership is needed, so that
the torch could be passed in an orderly fashion.
But I, personally, an just a bystander in this, although, my guile
binding for plotutils was used by a few people for a while.
Regards,
Mike Gran
(Sorry for top-posting, but, the parent email was top-posted)
On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 06:43:13PM +0200, Francesco Lazzarotto wrote:
> Hello,
> i hope to have found the right thread/people to communicate about the
> subject,
> i can confirm that the published plotutils v 2.6 source code doesn't compile
> anymore due changes in libpng API, i faced also other problems related to
> png and gif
> in a MS Windows build (see details below). I am available to contribute to
> the maintenance
> of this project, since i use it for my job.
> Kind regards,
> Francesco Lazzarotto.
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Lazzarotto, Francesco <francesco.lazzarotto@inaf.it>
> Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 at 18:25
> Subject: GNU plotutils maintenance and portability
> To: <bug-plotutils@gnu.org>, Francesco Lazzarotto <fralaz1971@gmail.com>, <
> maintainers@gnu.org>
>
>
> Hello,
> i did some maintenance and portability work on gnu plotutils package,
> i bypassed a bug on the MS windows build and also
> solved some compilation errors in the sources that could be useful
> for the GNU/Linux builds, i am available for maintenance of the
> gnu plotutils package and related software tools (see emails below)
> because i use it for my job.
> Hope to hear from you,
> kind regards
> Francesco Lazzarotto.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Lazzarotto, Francesco <francesco.lazzarotto@inaf.it>
> Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 at 16:27
> Subject: Fwd: GNU plotutils maintenance and portability
> To: <general@discussion.gnuwin32.p.re.sourceforge.net>
>
>
> Hello, if someone could be interested, i compiled version 2.6
> of GNU plotutils on MS windows, and bypassed a problem
> i faced in creating png and gif files (i guess due to the new version of
> libpng), adding a command line option to save directly to file.
> At the moment i found only plotutils 2.4.1 binaries for windows
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuwin32/files/plotutils/2.4.1-4/
> And is not possible to download plotutils binaries through pacman
> msys2.
> I contacted GNU plotutils maintainers and developers to share my updates
> if ever could be useful to other users. You can read below details about
> the topic.
> It seems to me that most of the heritage of gnuwin32 project has been took
> by msys2 project, if ever updated windows binaries of gnu plotutils will be
> produced could be included in the msys2 pacman
> repositories.
> Kind regards,
> Francesco Lazzarotto.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Lazzarotto, Francesco <francesco.lazzarotto@inaf.it>
> Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 at 15:39
> Subject: GNU plotutils maintenance and portability
> To: <maintainers@gnu.org>
> Cc: Francesco Lazzarotto <francesco.lazzarotto@inaf.it>
>
>
> Hello, i have updates about the subject,
> i am forwarding below a message i yet sent to gnu@gnu.org
> and to the developers/maintainers of plotutils and related tools.
> Hope the work i have done could help the gnu plotutils users community, i
> am available for the maintenance of GNU plotutils,
> since i use it in my job, also in case you are planning to do a new
> release, following the v. 2.6 of 2009. I of course use it under the terms
> of GPL sw license, i am also asking if it's ok to publish my updated
> version of gnu plotutils, to share with colleagues and students, open on my
> accounts github and/or sourceforge page.
> Thanks in advance for the reply and for all you do for the software
> community.
> Best regards,
> Francesco Lazzarotto.
>
>
> ------
>
> >*>On Monday, November 14, 2016 4:18 PM, Robert S. Maier <address@hidden> wrote:*
> >* Jean Louis <address@hidden> said...*
> >*>*
>
> >*> Jean-Louis, could you please supply a bit more information? On what*
> >*> platform (especially, operating system) did you try to compile*
> >*> plotutils? The version number of libpng would be useful too, if you*
> >*> have it.*
>
> >* I noticed that GNU GSRC collection has had a patch*
> >* for this problem in plotutils for few years now. Any libpng from*
> >* the 1.5.x and 1.6.x series will require this patch, as far as I*
> >* can tell.*
> >* http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/lh/gsrc/trunk/annotate/head:/pkg/gnu/plotutils/files/plotutils-2.6-fix-build.diff <http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/lh/gsrc/trunk/annotate/head:/pkg/gnu/plotutils/files/plotutils-2.6-fix-build.diff>*
>
>
> Hi. Any hope of getting this patch implemented.
>
> I noticed that the Guix distro uses a version of the patch here
> http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/packages/patches/plotutils-libpng-jmpbuf.patch
>
> Here's Fedora's version of the patch
> http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/rpms/plotutils.git/tree/plotutils-2.6-png15.patch
>
> So it is a well tested patch.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mike Gran
>
> ------
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Francesco Lazzarotto <fralaz1971@gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2020 at 16:48
> Subject: GNU plotutils maintenance and portability
> To: <rsm@math.arizona.edu>, <nick.tufillaro@oregonstate.edu>, <gnu@gnu.org>,
> <breiter@mathematik.uni-osnabrueck.de>, <cje2@york.ac.uk>, <
> bernhard@intevation.de>
> Cc: Francesco Lazzarotto <francesco.lazzarotto@inaf.it>, <
> ametzler@debian.org>
>
>
> Hello to everyone,
> *first of all, many thanks to all that have contributed to the development
> of*
>
> *gnu plotutils, libplot and related tools built on them.*
> I use it for science data analysis and processing in academy jobs
> (mostly space science research and tutoring in PhD courses).
> *I just done some maintenance work on the plotutils sources, so*
>
>
> *i want to ask you if this can be helpful for the plotutils users
> community.*
> *Details:*
> I faced some issues in using gnu plotutils version 2.6 (distributed in 2009)
> mostly on using it on MS Windows and MacOS, i am a Linux user but
> most of my colleagues and students use that proprietary closed source OS
> instead.
> I recompiled correctly plotutils from source on MicroSoft Windows
> using mingw c/c++ compiler in msys2 compatibility environment (and also
> cross-compiling on Linux),
> but i faced errors using graph exe for plotting on png and gif terminal
> redirecting
> stdout to file from the shell (this only in the MS Windows build).
>
> I've also seen that there where a compilation error also on Linux
> for the source file z_write.c of libplot
> due to changes in the libpng API , infact new libpng version we have
> png_jmpbuf() instead of (png_ptr)->jmpbuf
> corrected this, i've seen there could be the need to implement
> some error handling calls in case of error on the png output creation.
> I don't know how have been compiled the plutitls binaries of gnu plotutils
> version 2.6 on Linux, since they give error on compiling z_write.c if
> you don't comment or change the calls to (png_ptr)->jmpbuf
> i put the debian/ubuntu maintainer in copy also.
>
> It is true that there is a GnuWin32 binary version 2.4.1 of plotutils
> that works correctly, but for my projects i prefer always having the
> possibility
> to compile from source, so i added a switch to the program graph
> for saving png directly on file, instead of redirecting stdout on
> somefile.png.
> In this way, even with an error on the png created on stdout , you have
> the possibility to save the image plot on a file with commands like:
>
>
> *graph.exe -T png -o myoutfile.png somepoints.ssv*
> on MS win build, but can be used also on unix builds
>
> *graph -T png -o myoutfile.png somepoints.ssv*
>
> I don't expect to build soon GNU plotutils on MS win with
> Xorg support, i think it can be done compiling with mingw,
> compiling Xorg libraries and using Xming but at the moment
> i don't have time to do it easily.
> On MS win instead is easy to plot on the postscript terminal
> and then viewing with a postscript viewer, that can be
> ghostscript (gswin32.exe) or okular , okular can read also from stdin,
> in msys2 bash shell on win this is easy:
>
>
> *graph.exe -T ps somepoints.ssv | okular -*
>
> this made me think about the reason to put as default terminal the GNU
> metafile format,
> why don't put postscript as default terminal in graph?
> It's just a question to understand, perhaps there are many reasons to
> maintain gnu metafile
> as default output terminal i don't know.
> I know that one can always use *-T ps* and/or use plot program to
> convert to postscript or any other terminal/format , but i have the feeling
> that first time user and students they just want to do a simple 2D plot, so
> they could find easier just to:
>
> *graph.exe somepoints.ssv | somepsviewer -*
> or on unix/linux/MacOS
> *graph somepoints.ssv | somepsviewer -*
> or something like that.
> or directly with the use of stdin/stdout pipe
> or temp file
>
> *graph_ps.exe somepoints.ssv*
> or on unix/linux/MacOS
> *graph_ps somepoints.ssv*
> and having the plot popped up on their screen.
>
> for what concern the MacOS build, i have seen
> one can download using brew
>
> *brew install plotutils*
> but the binary version that one can download is compiled
> without x11 support, so even if one could use XQuartz
> you are obliged to recompile plotutils with x support,
> perhaps there are other repositories and ways to download
> the X11 enabled binaries on Mac, i have not a Mac to test it,
> i have just a i386 darwin 8.7 (corresponding to MacOSX tiger v. 10.4)
> virtual machine, without XDarwin,
> so i correctly recompiled plotutils 2.6 on darwin, it works perfectly,
> including saving png and gif plot files.
> I think that i could produce some darwin binaries with x11 support by
> myself.
> also cross-compiling on Linux with Darling compatibility environment,
> since on Ubuntu 18.04 last version of Xorg sources
> just build perfectly, and of course MacOS is a unix like OS.
> For sure there are MacOS binaries with X11 support, but i cannot
> download and test since i don't have a mac, i asked to a coligue
> to do it but she resigned since seeing the default is without X,
> and she didn't want to loose time to download apps that don't works
> out-of-the-box, ...
> i think that Apple wants users to use only Aqua based apps,
> this in my opinion is a problem, because there are a lot of science related
> applications that are X11 based, also some NASA apps require users to
> use XQuartz on MacOS ... I really don't have time and the possibility, nor
> the interest to build applications the create graphics with Aqua ... so for
> me
> it's again demonstration of the problems that create this kind of closed
> source/proprietary
> environments.
>
> At the end of all this story (sorry for being long), i just attached the
> version of plotutils, ascii_chart and piechart
> i compiled and used recently, with very simple changes, and the
> save-on-file feature i added to graph program.
> The attached tarballs are just downloaded from my github private
> repositories, i saved them on github repositories
> that are private, i can share username:password urls if you want
> clone/cooperate or you know someone is
> interested in doing it, here also the url without user:pass, if you would
> like to access just ask, i will send the
> urls with user:pass on my github account https://github.com/FraLaz1971
>
> *I also don't know if i can put as open repositories on my account your
> projects, so that's why contacting you and*
>
> *the gnu, for asking.*
>
> I Hope that i can help in someway the plotutils users, i expect your reply,
> thanks in advance.
> Francesco Lazzarotto.
>
> https://github.com/FraLaz1971/plotutils
>
> https://github.com/FraLaz1971/piechart
>
> https://github.com/FraLaz1971/ascii_chart
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Francesco Lazzarotto, PhD.
> https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4871-4072
> INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova (OAPD)
> [National Institute for Astrophysics - Astronomical Observatory of Padova]
> http://www.oapd.inaf.it/index.php/en
> office: +39 049 8293 519 mobile: +39 335 7126078
> email 1: francesco.lazzarotto@inaf.it
> email 2: fralaz1971@gmail.com
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/fralaz1971
> skype: fralaz1971
>
> plotutils_20200717T143149.tar.gz
> <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kjLzDJ5qO_eSCN3YXyG3WahtKW9GBXKx/view?usp=drive_web>
>
> piechart_20200717T143203.tar.gz
> <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MUwROVk2MYEpzNn3-dU3rIqq_WK4Oa3h/view?usp=drive_web>
>
> ascii_chart_20200717T143158.tar.gz
> <https://drive.google.com/file/d/10-Bd4-_QNJDF8eBn7eaR_NVG_X7ibjFW/view?usp=drive_web>
>
>
> --
> ******************************************************************
> *** PLEASE NOTE MY WORK EMAIL ADDRESS
> *** HAS CHANGED IN francesco.lazzarotto@inaf.it
> ******************************************************************
> Francesco Lazzarotto, PhD.
> https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4871-4072
> INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova (OAPD)
> [National Institute for Astrophysics - Astronomical Observatory of Padova]
> http://www.oapd.inaf.it/index.php/en
> office: +39 049 8293 519 mobile: +39 335 7126078
> email 1: francesco.lazzarotto@inaf.it
> email 2: fralaz1971@gmail.com
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/fralaz1971
> skype: fralaz1971
>
>
> --
> ******************************************************************
> *** PLEASE NOTE MY WORK EMAIL ADDRESS
> *** HAS CHANGED IN francesco.lazzarotto@inaf.it
> ******************************************************************
> Francesco Lazzarotto, PhD.
> https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4871-4072
> INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova (OAPD)
> [National Institute for Astrophysics - Astronomical Observatory of Padova]
> http://www.oapd.inaf.it/index.php/en
> office: +39 049 8293 519 mobile: +39 335 7126078
> email 1: francesco.lazzarotto@inaf.it
> email 2: fralaz1971@gmail.com
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/fralaz1971
> skype: fralaz1971
>
>
> --
> ******************************************************************
> *** PLEASE NOTE MY WORK EMAIL ADDRESS
> *** HAS CHANGED IN francesco.lazzarotto@inaf.it
> ******************************************************************
> Francesco Lazzarotto, PhD.
> https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4871-4072
> INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova (OAPD)
> [National Institute for Astrophysics - Astronomical Observatory of Padova]
> http://www.oapd.inaf.it/index.php/en
> office: +39 049 8293 519 mobile: +39 335 7126078
> email 1: francesco.lazzarotto@inaf.it
> email 2: fralaz1971@gmail.com
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/fralaz1971
> skype: fralaz1971
>
>
> --
> ******************************************************************
> *** PLEASE NOTE MY PERSONAL EMAIL ADDRESS
> *** HAS CHANGED TO fralaz1971@gmail.com
> ******************************************************************
> Francesco Lazzarotto
> mailto:fralaz1971@gmail.com
> skype:fralaz1971
--
******************************************************************
*** PLEASE NOTE MY PERSONAL EMAIL ADDRESS
*** HAS CHANGED TO
fralaz1971@gmail.com******************************************************************
skype:fralaz1971