Removing the Mac installers from downloads?

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NormandC
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Removing the Mac installers from downloads?

Post by NormandC »

Hey guys,

In the past week two Mac users (one here just today, the other on the Google+ community) have wondered why there was no origin point in the Sketcher like in the tutorials on YouTube.

The fact is that on Sourceforge, there is no 0.13.1830 stable build of FreeCAD. People on Mac OS X 10.7 get proposed FreeCAD_0.12_MacOSX10.7_20120110_x64.dmg. In the Mac FreeCAD 0.13 Unstable folder, they get a 0.13 version from October 2012, 4 months before the stable release! And you guys remember how active development was during that period prior to the 0.13 release.

Every Mac build on there is hopelessly outdated. So what's the point of having them there? People then come here with some expectations and wonder why they don't have such and such feature. :|

And not to forget that the Mac versions available on SF are riddled with bugs the Windows and Linux versions don't have. I've had exchanges with Mac users on various places like the RepRap forums, the 3D Printing G+ community... This does not paint FreeCAD in a very good light.

peterl94 made a build for OS X 10.6 last August based on master, it seems to work for other versions but some further installation of dependencies is required. Knowing that should we upload it? Unfortunately he didn't get much feedback: only three people replied to his topic!!!

So I'm opening this discussion, shouldn't we simply scrap every outdated Mac build on Sourceforge and stop advertising that FreeCAD is available on Mac until someone firmly commits to providing a current Mac build? Or at least one based on the last stable release?

Or could we at least put the really old stuff into separate sub-folders like it is done for Windows files? Could we disable the automatic download button on the Summary page? So the files would still be there but only the very motivated would find them...
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bejant
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Re: Removing the Mac installers from downloads?

Post by bejant »

Norm, I'd prefer not to suggest excluding any FreeCAD user base, but on the other hand there is something fundamentally wrong when new users are allowed to download any version that is hopelessly outdated and riddled with bugs ...
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NormandC
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Re: Removing the Mac installers from downloads?

Post by NormandC »

My thought exactly. They cannot have a good user experience right now with the builds available on Sourceforge. Many Mac users who installed them have told me. I can't count the number of times I've written "You know, FreeCAD doesn't crash as much on Windows and Ubuntu, they have features not found in the current Mac versions, etc, etc..." :|
jmaustpc
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Re: Removing the Mac installers from downloads?

Post by jmaustpc »

If we only had two choices 1) continue with the really old versions or 2) remove altogether and dump all attempt at providing builds for Apple...then I think ...probably.... I would vote for completely removing Apple builds.

Can we upload some of the versions built by users, Norm is referring to? If we did that we would, I assume, want to have some confidences that they are built properly and they function as expected. If we are worried about their quality etc, then we could remove the "official FreeCAD" Apple builds and replace with a link to somewhere else, like perhaps on our wiki, and allow placement of "community/user" builds which FreeCAD takes no responsibility for.

Here's another thought, lobby Apple to donate a computer, so we can compile the application for Apple's customers. Or lobby Apple to provide an Apple version of the Ubuntu PPA system.

Jim
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jriegel
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Re: Removing the Mac installers from downloads?

Post by jriegel »

We are a open source project, and there is "removing" a very bad word! ;)

But I see your concerns! I would rather redirect the download link for Mac on our landing page to a wiki page with big red letters saying that it is a very old Version and that the mac people are to lacy to contribute for their own platform!
Maybe we kick enough ass to get one building a newer Version. On the bottom of the wiki page we can link the old Version and say explicitly "Lots of features missing, don't expect much support on the forum and unable to load newer FreeCAD documents!".

I would say Norm should write the text, he is in the right mood for that ;)
Stop whining - start coding!
jmaustpc
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Re: Removing the Mac installers from downloads?

Post by jmaustpc »

jriegel wrote:the mac people are to lacy to contribute for their own platform!
Hi Juergen
Obviously I should be kind since English is not your first language, but you really can't expect me to let that go without a laugh!

"lacy" means to do with or made of lace...e.g like women's lingerie ....if Apple users are lacy can we PLEASE get them to take photos a post them for us all to see...Please? :D

You mean "Lazy".

Obviously just a typo ... but now how will I get that Mac user image out of my head? :)

Jim
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yorik
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Re: Removing the Mac installers from downloads?

Post by yorik »

I added a warning line in the readme.txt at https://sourceforge.net/projects/free-c ... %20MacOSX/
I also think these packages should stay there, they form a nice "history" of freecad...

Not sure how to solve this either. A kickstarter campaign to buy a mac for Jürgen? ;) No, bad idea, then he will switch to mac for life, and there will be nobody anymore to support windows ( We all know which side is Werner's heart already... )
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yorik
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Re: Removing the Mac installers from downloads?

Post by yorik »

That might be a good thing to do actually: Start a big campaign... We could write a forum post exactly about that (what knowledge you need, etc), then spread the word on every mean available...
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wandererfan
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Re: Removing the Mac installers from downloads?

Post by wandererfan »

bloody brilliant. well done! :idea:

wf
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