New Get Lazarus Initiative

[sysrpl]

@SilverWarior;

Thank you for your considerate reply. We've been discussing things both on the official pascal+lazarus mailing lists, as well as on forum.lazarus.freepascal.org

What I suggested and and others agreed to was to, like any other wiki, provide extern hyper links, the ones with orange arrows next to them. These extern hyper links are keyed on the word "Lararus" linking it to www.lazarus.freepascal.org on any page the first time the word appears (unless it's bolded as a topic first). This same rule applies to "Free Pascal". With the help of some editors, we've already got this done.

With regards to the changes we've made to Lazarus, they are mostly covered in the What's New page. There are some technical details where I personally believe super user rights should not be required to install software if it can be avoided, and to this end I've made the installers always keep everything confined to one folder off your $HOME folder. Anything that needs to change is in that folder and it doesn't interfere with any other folder on your computer, save for optionally installing an easily accessible shortcut (totally optional). If you want to get rid of our bundle, just delete that one folder and it's gone. On Windows I do install create start menu items, just for convenience so users can go to Start and type "Laz" and see the words "Lazarus 1.4 Test". In that case running the uninstaller deleted the start menu folder as well.

Another point, all out changes are in changes.diff which is the preferred method to share modifications wit the Lazarus and the Free Pascal teams. The changes.diff comes with every install and is located in the root of the lazarus folder. On Linux we actually just ship the source and build everything for you, applying:

patch -p0 -i $BASE/lazarus/changes.diff

in our install script, which is hosted here github and clearly denoted on our site:

http://github.com/sysrpl/Codebot.Set...c-3.0.linux.sh

Now whether we are going to repeat everything stated above somewhere on getlazarus.org is being considered. I personally weigh in on No, as I prefer to keep things simple and unencumbered with unnecessary information for the majority of our visitors, though we haven't fully decided yet.

And finally, with regards to codetyphon, yes we are aware of them. Your concern is understandable and well founded. I don't know how to communicate any degree of trust on this issue other than to say, look at my previous work, look at the fact that I don't sell anything on any of my site, be they ads or software. All I can say is I understand your concern.

[phibermon]

Ok my apologies also for my initial skepticism, I look forward to seeing links to the official project pages on your site. Given your commitment to open source and the Lazarus project itself, I'm sure you wouldn't want anybody to mistake getlazarus.org for the actual project pages, especially since you plan to monetize on the community with your consultation plans. It could easily be misconstrued as an attempt to mislead people, which given your comments you'd surely be horrified at the prospect of.

EDIT : I see you have now changed the front page and linked 'Lazarus' and 'Free Pascal' to the official project pages (it may help people if you included some text specifically stating that these are the official sites)

I wish you the best of luck with your initiative and I will try to put some time aside to provide technical assistance on the forums

[sternas]

Oh, my...

[phibermon]

12 years and that's the best you can come up with? aren't you the guy that 'makes' codetyphon?

[sternas]

Oh my... again

[phibermon]

That's George Takei's catchphrase - I see re-appropriation is a hobby of yours.

Seriously though it would be interesting to hear where you stand on the subject of misrepresentation when it comes to open source projects.

Do you think it's morally correct? what benefits do you feel it brings to the community?

[paul_nicholls]

@sysrpl - I downloaded your windows version of the Lazarus install file and then scanned it with Avast!...no issues. So I installed it, but during the install and for a while afterwards, I keep getting Avast blocking threats like "Win32:Evo-gen" malware in various .exe files in various subfolders of the install...is this a false positive?

I want to trust you, but have to ask

cheers,
Paul

[sysrpl]

Here's the manual setup guide for Windows I previously mentioned. If you're uncomfortable running automated installers on getlazarus.org, the guide below has step by step instructions on how to make everything yourself from svn sources.

http://www.getlazarus.org/setup/making/

Again, for a Linux guide, just consult the Linux setup script which contains similar steps along with comments.

https://github.com/sysrpl/Codebot.Se...c-3.0.linux.sh

[paul_nicholls]

@SilverWarior - I have attached a screenshot of the files my Avast put into the virus chest...I don't have the actual files anymore as I uninstalled it.
@sysrpl - thanks, I will have a look at the setup guide you made for Windows



cheers,
Paul

[SilverWarior]

@SilverWarior - I have attached a screenshot of the files my Avast put into the virus chest...I don't have the actual files anymore as I uninstalled it.

Based on quick look it seems that Avast put every *.exe file that was extracted with setup progarm into quarantene. This might have to do something with Avast comonly recognizing Inno setups as potentionaly dangerous files.
If you look aroud the web there are multiple reports about Avast raising false positives for Inno setups if they are not digitaly signed.
I gues Inno setup might have been used often for distributing various virus infected instalation in the past especially since it is freware.
Another reason for this might be the ability for Inno setup to use Pascal Scripts which means that makes it more difficult for AV software to make early heuristics tests. Especially if scripts are stored in text forn and compiled at runtime. I'm not sure about that.

Anywhay absed on my tests I preformed I don't think any of those files are actually infected. But I can't be 100% sure about that becouse no AV is perfect.