[Edu-sig] re: license

[Kirby Urner]

At 08:59 PM 1/21/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>  >Only in  the last few weeks have you started to pay attention to stuff
>like
> > that (thanks in part to promptings from Guido).  And now that you
> > are, VPython is on your shit list, and you're on the war path.
>
>Not fair.
>
>My issue with the VPython overwrite of the index.html is also archived and
>is probably 6 months old.  My discussion on the issue was never general.

It has only become more general recently -- in the few days since you
did more to improve your own app's distribution methods.

I'm confused about something you wrote earlier:

    "Not only does VPython install in non-standard places, it includes
    Numeric, but installs Numeric differently than Numeric installs
    itself on a standalone basis."

So where does Numeric install?  I just reinstalled VPython-2002-12-12.exe
(Windows) and see that it puts Numeric under site-packages, where I'd
*like* it to be.  Maybe Numeric as a standalone is what needs fixing.

>Just to make sure it was not a tecfhnical issue that Sherwood thought he
>faced, I recommended a very specific fix. The one discussed here.  VIdle
>gets the VPython help.  The Python index.html stays as it is.  4 keystrokes.
>All reasoanble concerns handled. Rejected.

My fix was to save Python's official index.html as oldindex, install
VPython, then rename VPython's to VPython.html, changing oldindex back
to index (Python's normal top level).  Then I edited the HTML in both
pages to have them point to each other.  No code changes to either
IDLE at all.  Both IDLE's go to Python top level docs by default, but
that page has a link to VPython's top level help embedded inside.

I agree that VPython's overwrite of index.html is a kludge, especially
because it supplies a substitute top level page from an older Python:
Release 2.2b1, October 19, 2001.  So I go to a top level page saying
I'm using this older version, when I'm actually not.

If the goal is to prevent confusion, then this is *not* a good solution.

>What has changed is that I feel less helpless and resigned to the situation.

You might want to put directions for the fix above, or something you've
come up with, in the readme.txt of PyGeo.  Go ahead and express yourself
in the readme (it's your program after all).  Something like:

    "VPython has this really goofy way of overwriting Python's top-level
    help page with its own, then supplying an obsolete substitute for
    Python's.  If this pisses you off (it sure pissed me off), then
    here's a fix:  ".

Note that to get index.html back from the dead in the first place, I had
to reinstall from the Python2.2.2 distro.  But at least in Windows, there's
an option to reinstall *just the docs* -- so that's really not so bad.
I recommend people keep the installer handy for whatever version of Python
they're using anyway -- for situations just like this.

>Guido urging me to undertake disutils was the key to that.  I thanked him.
>And have no problem thanking him again.
>
>Thanks.
>
>Art

Kirby