[Qt-creator] Question about "kate/ktexteditor" highlighting implementation in QtCreator

Dr.-Ing. Christoph Cullmann cullmann at absint.com
Tue Aug 14 18:56:56 CEST 2018


Hi,
 
>>>> Would it be possible to reuse the framework above to stay compatible and share
>>>> code/maintenance
>>>> effort?
>>> 
>>> That would be desirable goal :)
>> I hoped some, too.
> 
> Sharing that code would IMO be great. I don't see why we should maintain our own
> code for parsing those syntax highlighter definitions :)

Nice that we share that point of view, as during the discussion today here at Akademy.

>>>> At the moment the framework is LGPLv2+, but even relicensing to something
>>>> more liberal is at the moment still possible, if that would allow better
>>>> collaboration.
>>> 
>>> Thanks for contacting us on that question! I’ve added Lars as our Chief
>>> Maintainer to CC.
>> I added the maintainer of syntax-highlighting Volker Krause in CC.
>> Actually both are at akademy at the moment and perhaps can just talk
>> about the thing in person if wanted.
> 
> We had a good talk at Academy today, and both agreed that it would be good if we
> could re-use the same component in all places (including Qt Creator).

It would be great if some QtCreator developer could take a short look at what
the framework provides and if it is usable for their purpose.

The KTextEditor port is now done, for us it did work more or less out-of-the-box
with only minor extensions to extract a bit more meta-data from the XML.

>> 
>>> 
>>> Our 3rd-party license policy is documented here:
>>> https://quips-qt-io.herokuapp.com/quip-0004.html#acceptable-licenses
>>> 
>>> It boils down to:
>>> * MIT or BSD or anything that is basically the same is no problem to include for
>>> us
>>> * L(GPL) might be ok in some cases, but usually not for “core” parts
>>> 
>>> (That last part about “core” parts is written in the policy with the Qt hat on
>>> as “part of Qt Essentials", but for Qt Creator I’d interpret that in a similar
>>> manner.)
> 
> MIT or BSD is easiest. For various reasons I would very much prefer not to add
> L(GPL) dependencies to any parts of Qt.
>>> 
>>> I’d say that the generic text highlighting is a “core” part in Qt Creator, so it
>>> would be good if a 3rd-party library for that would be MIT/BSD-style, otherwise
>>> we probably cannot use it.
>> 
>> I think if the license would be the last issue, we can try to find some common
>> ground
>> for that.
> 
> That would be great. Then the remaining issue for us would be to find the time
> to do the porting to the new engine.

If we get positive feedback from the QtCreator team that

1) it is usable for them
2) they are willing to port their stuff in the future

we can start the relicensing work to MIT to get all things ready for
use by you.

Thanks for the fruitful discussion today, lets see how that all works out.

Greetings
Christoph

-- 
----------------------------- Dr.-Ing. Christoph Cullmann ---------
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