[FOSS-GPS] Contributing to FoxtrotGPS

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

Brian Wilson <brian at wildsong.biz> writes:
>
> What is the procedure to submit FoxtrotGPS code changes?

In short:

  - Get familiar with Bazaar <http://bazaar-vcs.org/>.
  - Make a branch for whatever issue (singular) you're solving.
  - Discuss what you're doing with us so that you don't
    run down a cul de sac.

And then I should be able to merge your branch into the mainline.

As far as `mergeability' goes...:

  - Try to stick to a single issue for a given branch,
    because it's harder to decouple things afterward.
  - The commit-history on branches that you submit needs
    to be clean: if I can't read through and understand
    what you're doing and why, then I can't merge it.
    And your commit-log messages are going to become
    entries in our ChangeLog file (cf. our ChangeLog :)).

I'm trying to respond to e-mail within 3 days or so, these days;
if you're not getting a satisfactory response quickly enough
through e-mail, please do drop by on IRC--we're not all available
there all the time, obviously (for example, I'm available mostly
during US-Eastern evening hours), but we're available.

> In my day job I am reluctantly a Windows / C# programmer and I need
> this both as personal therapy and because I am convinced I can build
> a better "nuvi" than Garmin can. Better for me anyway.
> 
> My biggest goal is to fix the spelling on "metric" :-) Is it really
> spelled "metrical" someplace?

"metrical", huh.... Somehow, nobody ever noticed that--including me....

> def met·ri·cal  adj.1. Of, relating to, or composed in poetic meter

Yeah....

> After that is accomplished I want to add USNG support. I realize those
> outside the US might not want US national grid support cluttering up
> their config screens, so should it be a compile time or run time
> option?
>
> Hopefully USNG will be widely adopted over time in the US, it is a
> much better system than the many variations of lat lon.

This is interesting--I'll have to learn about it. I'm skimming
through the Wikipedia article, and some of the sites to which it links,
right now. Do you have any specific docs that I should read?

Is the rest of the world doing something substantially similar,
or is this really just a US-only thing?

> I just got some APRS gadgets and would like to work on the AVL service
> (what they call "friends" in Tango).
> BTW calling it "friends" might make for resistance to acceptance in
> professional applications. Have to call them something else.
> "Co-workers" or maybe "Entities". Heh. Anyway has anyone been working
> on this?? (The feature itself that is, not changing its name :-) It's
> mentioned on the Foxtrot roadmap page.

It is indeed on the to-do list: the whole subsystem needs to be
replaced with something more open and generic. The best candidate
looks like the XMPP (Jabber) location-sharing framework:

    http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0080.html

... so I specifically want to try going down that route;
nobody's got around to working on that yet, though.

> (A "roadmap" -- how appropriate!)

:)


-rozzin.

-- 
"Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr))))."