Need clarification on Gramps 5.x

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November 17, 2015 - 4:47pm

eisa729

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Need clarification on Gramps 5.x

From the Gramps mailing list discussing portable apps.

PortableApps team has this to say about Gramps 4.x:

"Gramps 4.x - Temporarily on hold pending stability and possible licensing issues"

https://portableapps.com/development/outdated

Stability links to this post http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/Status-update-goals-and-ideas-td4668....

I have no idea what are the licensing issues they refer to.

http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/Gramps-4-2-1-32-bit-for-Windows-tp46...

and further down the page they speculate that

Note, I suppose the main limitation for the portable app is maybe the bsddb3 licence?

Is that the licensing issue?

And as for stability on Gramps 4.x one of the developers mentions:

I made a list of database corruption bugs:

https://gramps-project.org/bugs/view.php?id=8875

These stability issues also affect v3.4 and most have a known cause.
Considering we have approximately 20,000 users these problems are rare.

The next major release, v5.0, will give users the option to choose a
different database backend.

Moved to "Education Apps Support" forum - mod GC

Feature Request on Gramps Bugtracker: 4064: Gramps Portable in PortableApps.com Format
https://gramps-project.org/bugs/view.php?id=4064

November 18, 2015 - 5:46am

Bart.S

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About stability:

Considering we have approximately 20,000 users these problems are rare.

Lol, they are still ignoring the portable users:
all-time Gramps Portable downloads ~ 600,000
Gramps Portable 3.4.9 downloads > 50,000

Some of the database corruption bugs don't appear in the portable version, because the portable version doesn't allow multiple instances by default.

One of the users mentions in the discussion you linked to:

If I had known there were these kinds of issues with reasonably stable
32 bit win gramps v4, I would never have upgraded from 3.2.5-1, and the
many shortcomings under win 32, not to mention the bugs, in 4.1.3, are
driving me completely nuts! Controlled scrolling is completely and
utterly impossible! And window priority degrades after just minutes to
unusable chaos. The fact various of the bugs have supposedly been fixed
for 4.2+ is great, at least for those who can access that version on
their platform, but is of no help whatsoever if there is a library issue
for 32 bit users.

There is still no stable win32 4.x release!

Even if there will be a GrampsAIO sometime in the future, I won't use this as a base for Gramps Portable due to licensing issues. It integrates Graphviz, which license isn't GPL compatible. And furthermore:

Josip: I am not very much organized person and i am not using any building
system or write my own build script. Just building one by one library
when i need them or other library requires them. Making dirty patches
without keeping any track of them.

IANAL but I think this violates the GPL.

November 18, 2015 - 8:33am

(Reply to #2) #3

John T. Haller

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Data Sharing and the GPL

Graphviz is EPL which is incompatible with the GPL. But it depends on how the data is passed. If the data is prepared, saved to the drive, and then graphviz is launched to handle it, closes down, and then Gramps picks up the result, that's just fine. If Gramps loads the graphviz dll library and does not have permission to include an exception to the GPL from all contributors to Gramps, then that is indeed a violation of the GPL and the copyrights of all the contributors to Gramps. There are two ways around this. One is to save the data to disc and launch a separate process of Graphviz to handle the data. The other is to get permission from every Gramps contributor to relicense their work as GPL with exceptions allowing it to be linked to the graphviz EPL code. Note that this would also involve getting this permission from the developers of every GPL library that is included with Gramps, not just the Gramps developers.

Note that this was not the appropriate location for this discussion (outdated apps thread) so I moved it to its own thread.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

November 22, 2015 - 7:51pm

(Reply to #3) #4

eisa729

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Sounds exactly like you describe.

But it depends on how the data is passed. If the data is prepared, saved to the drive, and then graphviz is launched to handle it, closes down, and then Gramps picks up the result, that's just fine. .... John T. Haller

Just to reinforce this point, graphviz is only used as a "backend" to convert
specification files (.dot files) to graphs in the formats specified in
previous messages. With Graphviz installed, when you ask Gramps to generate
a relationship chart, for example, you are given the choice of what end
format (for example .png) you wish and Gramps then generates a .dot file and
calls Graphviz with appropriate flags to generate that format of image.

On the other hand, if Graphviz is not installed, Gramps only gives you the
option of creating the specification file (.dot file) used as input to
Graphviz. This file is not an image file and unless you subsequently install
and run Graphviz (from the command line) with appropriate parameters, it is
fairly useless.

http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/Graphviz-td1811279.html#a1811281

Thanks for the clarification.

November 22, 2015 - 9:20pm

(Reply to #4) #5

Gord Caswell

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No licensing issues then?

Based on the information there, it sounds like Graphviz is called by Gramps as hoped for. As such, to me it sounds ds li!e the incompatible licenses aren't a problem.

John, what do you think?

November 23, 2015 - 5:08am

(Reply to #5) #6

Bart.S

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Last time I checked, Gramps AIO doesn't bundle original Graphviz binaries. GVEdit (Graphviz) Portable does.
The real showstopper is "making dirty patches without keeping any track of them". The author fixes GTK, Python, Graphviz, ... and if he can't keep track nobody else can.

November 23, 2015 - 6:38pm

(Reply to #6) #7

eisa729

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Bart we are not talking about the existing windows package,

(which by the way I agree with you on see my earlier reply) but rather the Gramps source code itself and the licences that you mentioned as a reason.

November 23, 2015 - 6:30pm

(Reply to #7) #8

John T. Haller

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Yes and No

Yes, the license compatibility issue between EPL and GPL would be a non-issue if one calls the other out of process as it appears.

If certain fixes are needed for GTK, Graphviz, etc to get it working on Windows and are made to the official release, we'd need the source of those fixes. If those fixes aren't released, that would be a licensing issue as well.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

November 24, 2015 - 7:01am

(Reply to #8) #9

Bart.S

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PortableApps.com makes existing windows packages portable.
No working/stable windows package no portable package.
I don't compile source code of applications myself.
It's just repackaging in a portable way (with a custom launcher).

November 22, 2015 - 8:20pm

(Reply to #9) #10

eisa729

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Very interesting.

All good points , but raises one question, the thing you mention ("multiple instances by default") can that not incorporated into Gramps to improve it?

I wasn't aware the person doing the ms-window packaging was doing it in an undocumented fashion and that explains why I can not see any scripts that allow you to package the current version of gramps for windows!

How do you create yours for Gramps 3.x?
Looking at https://portableapps.com/node/38245 it seems you had a standalone way of using Graphviz but choose to incorporate it, would going back to this method help? I only ask as the gramps project clearly states that Graphviz is not a requirement https://github.com/gramps-project/gramps#the-following-packages-are-stro... but does strongly recommend it and while the message they show about graphviz reads "Enable creation of graphs using Graphviz engine. Without this, three reports cannot be run. " this message is very clearly wrong in that the reports can be run but not viewed or converted to other formats see: http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/Graphviz-td1811279.html#a1811281 and my message to John.

Questions
*How is the communication between you and the Gramps project?
*~~Am I missing something, I've searched the mailing list and don't see previous correspondence with you?~~ found it i think will read later http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/Portable-Gramps-Windows-td1813366.ht...
*Can you get your changes (the portable stuff) into to Gramps to make your life easier?

At the end of the day I understand and appreciate what you have done and thank you for that

BTW: A 32bit version for windows is now available.
http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/Gramps-4-2-1-32-bit-for-Windows-td46...

November 23, 2015 - 5:01am

(Reply to #10) #11

Bart.S

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some answers

All good points , but raises one question, the thing you mention ("multiple instances by default") can that not incorporated into Gramps to improve it?

You'll have to ask the gramps developers.

How do you create yours for Gramps 3.x?

Based on the minimal windows installer (not maintained anymore), the gramps source and the hard way of dependencies installation [#]. Gramps Portable supports GVEdit (Graphviz) Portable and Ghostscript Portable as well.

How is the communication between you and the Gramps project?

There is none.
The thread you found is from the author of the previous Gramps Portable test version [#].

November 23, 2015 - 6:37pm

(Reply to #11) #12

eisa729

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Building gramps portable

You'll have to ask the gramps developers.

Ok I've sent a link to this discussion.

Based on the minimal windows installer (not maintained anymore), the gramps source and the hard way of dependencies installation [#]

Looks really difficult, but the link only shows for a standard install and does not contain any of the undocumented steps to make a portable version you made. Which means nobody else can recreate the work you have done, so essentially everyone is in the same position for either windows package

There is none. Sticking out tongue

Ok
All I can really say is communication is really important Bart S

The thread you found is from the author of the previous Gramps Portable test version

Thank you once again.

November 28, 2015 - 5:05pm

(Reply to #12) #13

josippa

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How GrampsAIO is made

GrampsAIO-4.1.2 package is made with NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) using install script from src\gramps.nsi
Source of Gramps launchers (gramps, grampsw and grampsd) are in src\gramps.c together with instruction how to compile it.
All libraries Gramps depend on was built in MSYS2 environment which have all recipes, patches and tools needed to do that.

For repackaging AIO use existing installation do download new Gramps source and build and install it from there to that prefix (build and install instruction is same for all platform).
Change in gramps.nsi: APPNAME, APPVERSION and APPBUILD to reflect source version.
Run that gramps.nsi with NSIS to produce new package.

Amount of patches to build or run depending libraries varies by time. Most of them will be applied upstream in next version.
For example Gtk3 at begin of development cycle requires lots of patches and now can be built clean from source.
Graphviz just need few little changes to be build with mingw-w64 and msys2. Note that their developers announce that will not be any official windows build in future. Most other libraries (including ones graphviz uses) don't have official builds either.

As noted before Gramps is not linked with Graphviz and their libraries and binaries can be safely removed from AIO package.

November 25, 2015 - 7:44pm

(Reply to #13) #14

eisa729

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Gramps AIO 4.2.0+ only one instance can be run at a time.

The gramps mailing list answers this for me and posting here for others to see:

They now have mutex support so it is only possible to have one instance
of Gramps running. If you by incident try to run it more then once,
warnings will be printed in console if gramps.exe or grampsd.exe is
used, if you use grampsw.exe then warning dialog will pop-up. In either
case second Gramps instance will not start.

http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/gramps-4-2-0beta1-windows-launchers-...

November 23, 2015 - 7:54pm

#15

sam888

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When I get a moment I'll review.

Hi everyone,

My plan is that potentially before the Gramps 5.0 release, I'd like to have the Build services from Travis-CI & Appveyor automically building each of the packages (including the portable apps one if possible or even better merge both and make it an option on installation?).

Looks like a fair bit of work needs to been done to document the build process on windows!

Bart.S great work on the Gramps portable package, would you happen to have a Github id so I can add you to the Gramps project, if your interested?

Volunteers are always welcomed

Thanks for pointing out this discussion.
--
Sam Manzi
https://github.com/gramps-project

November 24, 2015 - 7:03am

(Reply to #15) #16

Bart.S

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Thanks

Sorry, I don't have a Github id and I don't want one.
I'm not a programmer.

February 1, 2016 - 4:08pm

(Reply to #16) #17

eisa729

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Thank you

Volunteers are always welcomed

What type of Volunteer are you looking for ? I'm also not a programmer. (Was contacted off forum)

November 10, 2016 - 8:32pm

#18

Gord Caswell

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Gramps 4.2.4

Sorry to revive the thread, guys - Bart.S, how's the newest release of Gramps look like with regards to licensing concerns?

November 11, 2016 - 5:06am

(Reply to #18) #19

Bart.S

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No change

from my point of view

November 11, 2016 - 5:35pm

(Reply to #19) #20

Gord Caswell

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Build methodology changed?

This is the current build script for Gramps on Windows, I don't see anything there that would cause licensing problems, particularly in light of the fact that the gramps team is actively working on the package (and all others, for that matter) being automatically built using Travis-CI and appveyor.

Have you been in touch with the gramps team recently to see where they're at, in regards to fixing the concerns you've raised?

November 12, 2016 - 11:32am

(Reply to #20) #21

Bart.S

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Well,

I don't think this file is used anymore. It's in a folder 'nonAIO', it has code with svn (Gramps is using Git for years), latest copyright 2008 Stephen George (maintainer of the old nonAIO installers).

And no, as stated above, I'm not in touch with the gramps team. Feel free to touch them if you want.

June 20, 2017 - 5:25pm

#22

Gord Caswell

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Build Process changed

As the build process has been changed, Gramps on Windows no longer requires dependencies being rebuilt. Accordingly, I'm in the process of updating our package.

June 21, 2017 - 9:23am

(Reply to #22) #23

Bart.S

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My 2 cents

The developer/packager of the Windows AIO hasn't commented in that thread at all.
All others take an old package and update Gramps only (the python code) for personal use/testing. They use his rebuilt dependencies.
IMHO nothing has changed in terms of legality.

July 30, 2018 - 1:23am

(Reply to #23) #24

eisa729

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Josippa's reply in this thread

Yes he did reply in this thread see "How GrampsAIO is made" https://portableapps.com/comment/225420#comment-225420

And also see "How to use MSYS2 to run latest Gramps development version from source in 64bit Windows."
https://www.gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php?title=Gramps_for_Windows_w...

July 30, 2018 - 1:19am

#25

eisa729

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Gramps 5.0.0 has been released

Gramps 5.0.0 has been released, any potential for a test portable version until this supposed licensing issue has been worked out as the the 3.x series has multiple issues that have been fixed in the 5.x series?

https://github.com/gramps-project/gramps/releases/tag/v5.0.0

July 30, 2018 - 6:30am

(Reply to #25) #26

John T. Haller

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64-bit Only

They still haven't built a 32-bit package of 5.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

August 5, 2018 - 3:44pm

(Reply to #26) #27

VirtualVirgo

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32-bit Package

The 32-bit package of Gramps 5.0 was released two days ago (Aug 3rd) https://sourceforge.net/projects/gramps/files/Stable/5.0.0/GrampsAIO-5.0.0-1_win32.exe/download

August 5, 2018 - 4:16pm

(Reply to #27) #28

Gord Caswell

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Not provided by publisher

That package is not being provided by the publisher yet.
Yes, they have put it on a file hosting site, however it is not yet linked to from their main website. Once it is, we can prepare to update our build as well.

August 5, 2018 - 7:36pm

(Reply to #28) #29

eisa729

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32 bit download for windows is ready

Not provided by publisher

That package is not being provided by the publisher yet.
Yes, they have put it on a file hosting site, however it is not yet linked to from their main website. Once it is, we can prepare to update our build as well.

?? Are you sure? It does appears on one of the Gramps managed website for the project https://sourceforge.net/projects/gramps , the other one is https://github.com/gramps-project which also has the file in https://github.com/gramps-project/gramps/releases/tag/v5.0.0 which is referenced on the download page https://gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php?title=Download#MS_Windows ? Either way it's available now.

October 13, 2018 - 6:07pm

#30

prc

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I am the person who created

I am the person who created the Gramps AIO 5.0.0 and 4.2.8 32 bit executables. It was based on Josip's original scripts, but does have a few tweaks due to the fact I had to work around not having ALL of Josips changes to the various tools and dependencies. It is based on the MSYS MINGW32 toolset.

I am willing to assist if someone here knows how to create the portable version. I may even be willing to create future Gramps versions for portable, once the basic flow is worked out. I have no experience with PortableApps (did not even know it existed until just an hour ago).

October 15, 2018 - 7:42am

(Reply to #30) #31

Bart.S

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Welcome here

Hi, I'm afraid I can't help much, too many things changed and Gramps AIO 5.0 doesn't even run on my machines.

October 15, 2018 - 4:27pm

(Reply to #31) #32

prc

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I'm sorry to hear that Gramps

I'm sorry to hear that Gramps 5.0.0 doesn't run on your machines; this is more than a bit concerning. Do you have any idea why? There have been a few bug reports that people have issues, usually due to something left from previous versions in their Appdata\Roaming\gramps profile, but I am not aware of any widespread difficulties.

October 16, 2018 - 4:46am

(Reply to #32) #33

Bart.S

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Win XP

October 16, 2018 - 10:05am

(Reply to #33) #34

Gord Caswell

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XP unsupported

It looks like Windows XP is unsupported by Gramps 5.0.0.
Bart.S, the build instructions for Windows are quite clear here; if that's what prc is using, I'm happy to package Gramps Portable off of the resulting AIO for you.

October 16, 2018 - 1:26pm

(Reply to #34) #35

Bart.S

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Feel free to take over

Maybe do a pre-release first. Some of the users might get angry if their database gets corrupted due to an automatic upgrade.

October 19, 2018 - 11:31am

(Reply to #35) #36

prc

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You may also find some of

You may also find some of https://gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php/Building_Gramps_AIO_cx_freeze-... useful. It documents exactly what I did to created the 32-bit AIO.

P.S. If there is some script or other elements that go into packaging Gramps for PortableApps, I would like to see how it is done. If it is not too difficult, I may make it part of the Windows release process.

October 19, 2018 - 2:25pm

(Reply to #36) #37

Gord Caswell

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Will document

I'll document how to do it for you once I'm done.

June 19, 2021 - 12:08pm

(Reply to #37) #38

BAMaustin

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Dual-Mode too?

Some of the other packages in the PortableApps catalogue have a "Dual-mode (32-bit & 64-bit)" installation... where the OS is detected on-the-fly and the right version is sub-launched.

I wonder if that would make the Gramps Portable archive too large. And even if it does, perhaps it would give insight into making the master project dual-mode... which might evolve into reducing it to eliminate redundancies. Which then would roll back into a smaller Gramps Portable archive.

Brian

January 11, 2019 - 6:00pm

#39

eisa729

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Guess this is difficult to do

Guess this is difficult to do?

January 12, 2019 - 2:32pm

(Reply to #39) #40

Gord Caswell

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Not particularly

It's not particularly difficult, it's just time consuming, and there's a long list of outdated applications I've been helping update as time permits, which do not require rebuilding the launcher for them.

On top of that, real life also tends to get in the way.

May 10, 2019 - 6:37pm

(Reply to #40) #41

eisa729

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I really appreciate what you

I really appreciate what you and other volunteers here on portableapps do for us users.

Thanks for doing this and sorry if I came off as demanding.

EDIT: Happy to test if needed

August 15, 2019 - 8:45pm

#42

eisa729

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Happy to test if needed :)

https://www.reddit.com/r/gramps/comments/cpia99/portable_gramps_installa...

August 22, 2019 - 7:02pm

#43

VirtualVirgo

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New Gramps Release

The base application, Gramps, has been updated to 5.1.0 as of August 21st, 2019 (yesterday by this post's time).
https://github.com/gramps-project/gramps/releases/tag/v5.1.0
https://gramps-project.org/introduction-WP/2019/08/gramps-5-1-0-released/

My question is, are you still working on this, Gord? Should someone else take over?

August 22, 2019 - 8:01pm

(Reply to #43) #44

Gord Caswell

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Coming

It's on my list of things to work on, although I don't have a timeline at this point in time.

January 12, 2020 - 3:51pm

#45

eisa729

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Happy new year.

FYI Gramps 5.1.2 was released a few days ago.

And I also notice on the entry for portableapps on the download page now says "[3] Note that PortableApps.com use an old version of Gramps and it is not recommended for general use"

https://gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php/Download#3

April 15, 2021 - 6:47pm

#46

eisa729

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Gramps portable 5.1.3 has

Gramps portable 5.1.3 has been released

https://portableapps.com/apps/education/gramps_portable

Thank you to all involved.

PS: Any chance the screenshot could be updated to something more recent like:

https://gramps-project.org/wiki/images/7/7a/ChartsCategory-pedigreeview1...

from the feature page

https://gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php/Features

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