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Back to Everything Unix

Release for Linux, or why I don't like GPL zealots

Yann L · 2005-02-21T04:11:03

The story started a couple of years ago, where I had a discussion with my boss about the bad quality of IDEs under Linux. We are good friends, so after ranting around for a while, we started to sketch out the basic features of a good Linux based IDE. It was of course heavily influenced by the MS Visual Studio IDE, but we brought in a couple of really neat new ideas. We even started coding a little in our free time, but we didn't go far, due to time constraints. Eventually, the project was forgotten. Until around two weeks ago. When I came back from South America, I met him to discuss some company related affairs. Discussion eventually turned to IDEs and Linux, and he was ranting about Eclipse and the new "release candidate" of CDT he tried, that was supposedly so bug ladden, that it made it totally unusable. Anyway, we came back to speak about our little project back then. And since we both didn't have to much to do over the holidays, we started coding again... So now, we have a functioning prototype. It looks nice, it feels nice, almost like a GTK+ version of MSVC. It's fast, not buggy, and has many interesting features such as support for many different languages and compilers, native support for cross compiling, autocompletion, source code folding, source sensitive help and reference system, support for custom build tools (such as a Cg compiler, for example), remote debugging, and other nice stuff never found in a Linux IDE before. Well, it's just a prototype, so there's not much eye candy, but it basically works. We wanted to release it for free, but it would not be open source (since it uses a ton of inhouse RAD libraries). We thought, no problem, we ask our lawyer to draft a custom license, making it basically free for everything, but you won't get the source. Everything is fine, don't you think ? Well, wrong. We contacted a few Linux groups we knew, since we needed some input, ideas for some a the more complex features, and maybe some help with the eye candy (icons, etc). I can't even describe you the flak we got. "WHAT, no source ?! We don't care if it's free. If there's no source, and if it's not under the GPL, it sucks, and we won't use it" "It doesn't use autotools ? Everything that doesn't work with autotools is crap. It won't even compile on my <insert exotic Unix variant here>" "Yeah, it looks OK, but emacs is sooo much better ! Why don't you use emacs ? See, I cannot even check my email inbox within your IDE, you should fix that" "But, it looks like MSVC ! Microsoft is evil, blah blah blah" Those were the type of response we got. Many of the people we sent our prototype didn't even try it, because they refused to support Linux software that wasn't GPL ! Unbelievable. It's this attitude that scare more commercially oriented developers off. And people still wonder, why there is more quality software on Windows than on Linux. [/rant] So, does anyone in here know a place on the net, where one can present closed source development related Linux software for constructive input, in a somewhat smaller context, without having to fear the Slashdot and GPL mob ? Something like GDNet, but for Linux would be perfect :)

Everything Unix Technical

Started by Yann L January 04, 2005 10:20 PM

225 comments, last by Yann L 19 years, 6 months ago

Yann L

Author

1,806

January 06, 2005 10:42 AM

Quote: Original post by C-Junkie
Yann, I'm not sure if gnome is going to like having gtk 2.6 dumped onto it.

Uhm, well, no it doesn't seem to like it too much... *pokes at the gnome* Actually, it seems pretty dead right now [wink]

Reinstall...

Quote: Original post by C-Junkie
You might have to try out some gnome 2.9 development packages if you need the newest gtk. Gnome 2.10 comes out in feburary, anyway, so unless you were planning on releasing before then, it's not that bad of a target... (and the API/ABI freeze happens monday)

Do you really need gtk2.6? The only nice feature I'm looking for is that they moved this nice FileEntry widget from gnomeui to gtk.

Well, it is supposed to fix a few bugs. And I want that GtkCellRendererCombo widget, which is 2.6+ only. I need it to include dropdown selections within a list. Prior to 2.6, only buttons and checkboxes are supported, and I don't know how we're going to add a multiple choice selection with these elements.

I tried including the widget directly in my code, deriving from the GtkCellRenderer base, but it segfaults. *sigh*

Quote:
That was infact the first thing to go after I installed VS.Net03, it was a nice idea but I noticed it had a tendancy to crapout every now and then, and personally I prefer have a 'previous projects' submenu on the File menu with the last 20 or so projects I've loaded.

Well, I hope that it won't crap out on our IDE ;) I can always add an additional "recent projects" submenu, I guess I can invest these 2 minutes to make a (non-paying) customer happy [grin]

Promit

13,404

January 06, 2005 10:49 AM

Yann --

Just a couple suggestions [grin]

For the source code tabs, there really ought to be a close button, either a single one for the current tab, or one on each tab (prefer former).

It's impossible to tell from the screenshot, but it'd be really nice if the side and bottom panels could auto-hide, same as in VS 2k3. Docking would be cool too, I guess, but not that important.

Again, impossible to tell from the screenshot, but Ctrl-Tab functionality to switch code tab would be nice, VC6 style. I don't like VC8 Express' more complex Ctrl-Tab window only because it's slower.

Tabs can be dragged around to be reordered, and also tabs should have z-order seperate from tab order.

SlimDX | Ventspace Blog | Twitter | Diverse teams make better games. I am currently hiring capable C++ engine developers in Baltimore, MD.

Yann L

Author

1,806

January 06, 2005 10:58 AM

Quote: Original post by Promit
For the source code tabs, there really ought to be a close button, either a single one for the current tab, or one on each tab (prefer former).

Already done (one close button per active tab). Gtk doesn't support that directly, so we had to workaround a little.

Quote: Original post by Promit
It's impossible to tell from the screenshot, but it'd be really nice if the side and bottom panels could auto-hide, same as in VS 2k3. Docking would be cool too, I guess, but not that important.

They can autohide. Docking was briefly discussed, but is on low priority right now.

Quote: Original post by Promit
Again, impossible to tell from the screenshot, but Ctrl-Tab functionality to switch code tab would be nice, VC6 style.

I don't have vc6; please explain.

Quote:
Tabs can be dragged around to be reordered, and also tabs should have z-order seperate from tab order.

They can be reordered by dragging. Explain the z-order vs. order issue ?

Winograd

380

January 06, 2005 11:01 AM

Few of you have pointed out that the emacs really lacks support for things like intellisense and pals.. no more.. CEDET provides intellisense and lot's of other features you expect to find from a decent IDE.

And no.. I don't enjoy using emacs (actually I haven't tried it that much, kdevelop is more to my liking), but just happened to notice the CEDET project..

Koshmaar

989

January 06, 2005 12:53 PM

Screenshot looks really promising, and as I'm developing game that eventually will be build on Linux systems, I would be really glad to use good, stable and easy to use IDE. Currently on Windows I'm using DevCpp, it's ok and could be even said it's very good IDe, if it onlu:

1. would be much more stable, in latest version I get at least 2-3 h/h (new SI unit: hangs per hour ;-))
2. would be cross platform; now it's only win, and although Linux version is going to appear one day (using Kylix), it won't be available soon...

Ok, so Yann, you said your IDE it's very stable; that's great, 1. requirement is already met :-) But what about second one? I don't remember seeing you mention it anywhere in this thread, though I read all those posts... being cross platform would give you serious advantage over VS, DevCpp, KDevelop and all other IDE's that are restricted to win or *nix systems.

Personal homepage | SDL_Config | Ninja Cat and Zombie Dinosaurs - free original browser game

_the_phantom_

11,263

January 06, 2005 02:09 PM

Quote: Original post by Yann L
Well, I hope that it won't crap out on our IDE ;) I can always add an additional "recent projects" submenu, I guess I can invest these 2 minutes to make a (non-paying) customer happy [grin]

hehe, the cheque is in the mail [wink]

PinguinDude

154

January 06, 2005 05:27 PM

Quote: Original post by Koshmaar
Screenshot looks really promising, and as I'm developing game that eventually will be build on Linux systems, I would be really glad to use good, stable and easy to use IDE. Currently on Windows I'm using DevCpp, it's ok and could be even said it's very good IDe, if it onlu:

1. would be much more stable, in latest version I get at least 2-3 h/h (new SI unit: hangs per hour ;-))
2. would be cross platform; now it's only win, and although Linux version is going to appear one day (using Kylix), it won't be available soon...

Ok, so Yann, you said your IDE it's very stable; that's great, 1. requirement is already met :-) But what about second one? I don't remember seeing you mention it anywhere in this thread, though I read all those posts... being cross platform would give you serious advantage over VS, DevCpp, KDevelop and all other IDE's that are restricted to win or *nix systems.

Should be possible since he is using GTK right ? :o

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pingux/ <-- you know you wanna see my 2D Engine which supports DirectX and OpenGL or insert your renderer here :)

Promit

13,404

January 06, 2005 06:46 PM

Quote: Original post by Yann L
Quote: Original post by Promit
Again, impossible to tell from the screenshot, but Ctrl-Tab functionality to switch code tab would be nice, VC6 style.

I don't have vc6; please explain.

Basically, you hit Ctrl-Tab, and it switches to the next tab in the Z order, sliding the current one just under it...

Quote:
They can be reordered by dragging. Explain the z-order vs. order issue ?

Let's say we have 3 tabs open, named A.cpp, B.cpp, and C.cpp, in that order from left to right, and A.cpp is the active tab. Atm, the Z order is A, B, C. If I switch to C.cpp, the order of tabs is the same, but the Z order is C, A, B. If I were to close C, A would become the active tab, not B. If I hit Ctrl Tab, A would become the active tab and the Z order would be A, C, B.

SlimDX | Ventspace Blog | Twitter | Diverse teams make better games. I am currently hiring capable C++ engine developers in Baltimore, MD.

Yann L

Author

1,806

January 07, 2005 01:36 AM

Success ! I finally managed to install GTK 2.6 on my gnome system. Unfortunately, the Gtk widget in question still doesn't work as expected, and the documentation is less than helpful in this regard. We are going to go by trial and error, I'm afraid. But well, at least 2.6 works.

Promit: OK, I'll look into this.

About porting it to Windows, it should be possible using Win-GTK.

Shadowdancer

319

January 07, 2005 06:20 AM

Just an OT idea: open a new topic for the IDE discussion. Right now, the conversation really has potential, but there is a grave danger that it's being taken over from replies to posts on the first 2 or 3 pages. A thread with the current topic is just too good a flamebait to pass on.

Release for Linux, or why I don't like GPL zealots

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