[ptx] autopano-sift 1.6 released: control-point coverage improved, bug fixes

[Sebastian Nowozin]

Hi Rob,


On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 06:32:37AM -0600, Rob Park wrote:

> Ok, I'll try that, but then I have a question: If autopano-complete.sh 
> is so broken that it needs drastic changes like this to be made, how 
> come the author does not notice this? It obviously works on somebody's 
> computer, right? Why would they release this file in such a broken 
> state? (especially since the changelog says he just fixed one other 
> major bug that I was experiencing before, that I fixed myself originally).


The problem is more or less the missing integration of the PE .NET
executeables in Fedora. Other distributions are worse though.

There are a number of points to consider:

 1. PATH basics.  I designed the scripts so the .exe files should just be in
    any PATH the user chooses. Whether thats /bin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin or
    some /opt/something/bin is his choice.

 2. binfmt-misc and .exe handling.  This seems to work only if the user can
    execute the .exe files directly, that is, if the kernel is compiled with a
    proper binfmt-misc handler and the PE .NET executeables have been properly
    registered.  This will improve over time, but right now some distributions
    still do not provide a binfmt-misc handler or even worse, they redirect
    anything with a PE header to wine.

 3. Mono prefix.  If you replace the direct execution of the .exe files by
    "mono file.exe", then you of course have to provide the fully qualified
    pathname to the executeable file. (Alternatively, I am thinking about some
    "mono $(which file.exe)" solution, as file.exe is resolved using the
    standard PATH then.

 4. I am not a distributor.  As such I cannot spend so much time on every
    individual configuration.  I basically test it here and then release it.
    I do not intentionally ship something "broken".

 5. In the long term, I aim at changing the license to a redistribution
    compatible one (GPL or so), so it can be packaged properly by the
    distribution maintainers.  Until that happens, I am glad for anyone
    providing packages so end users can use it.


Regards,
Sebastian

-- 
nowozin at cs.tu-berlin.de --- http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~nowozin/