[Vm-dev] CameraPlugin for VM

[David T. Lewis]

On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 10:18:51AM +0200, Torsten Bergmann wrote:
>  
> Hi VM developers (CC Squeak and Pharo list),
> 
> anyone know about the state of integrating
> the camera plugin from scratch into the Squeak VM sources.
> Last discussion I know of is at:
> 
> http://forum.world.st/Camera-plugins-was-Re-Video-Media-in-Squeak-td2020502.html
> 
> Any news on this or any progress? Are there plans to integrate 
> the plugin into Cog as well?
> 
> Thx
> Torsten 

Based on browsing through some web links, my understanding is:

- There are two plugins of interest from Scratch, the CameraPlugin and
  ScratchPlugin.
- The source code for these plugins is distributed from scratch.mit.edu.
- There is interest in both plugins from various parts of the community,
  and given that the code for both originates from the same development
  team, we should include both plugins (not just one or the other).
- Bert has obtained permission from Scratch to distribute ScratchPlugin
  with Squeak VMs. Image side accessors may also be distributed, and it
  is not necessary to distribute the Scratch license text for any of this.
- I assume that CameraPlugin is covered by this same release from Scratch,
  but this should be confirmed.
- Licensing for the plugins and accessors remains under the Scratch
  license with the exclusions noted above. The plugins have not been
  released under MIT license.
- The plugins consist of platform support code as well as Slang source.
- Slang source for the plugins may be extracted from the Scratch developers
  image, and from that point forward could be maintained and updated on
  a SqueakSource repository (probably separate from VMMaker in order to
  avoid license confusion).
- The platform support code could be added to squeakvm.org Subversion
  (trunk plus cog) and mirrored as needed. Changes to this code are
  unlikely, so once set up the maintenance burden would be low.
- If added to Subversion, the Scratch license information would be added
  there as well.
- Adding Scratch license code to the Subversion repository might cause
  issues for tarball distributors (though similar issues already exist
  for e.g. the Mpeg plugin). 

Does the above sound right?

Here are some related links:

Sources:
  <http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Scratch_1.4_Download
  <http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Source_Code
  <http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Scratch_on_Linux

Sources (modified for Pharo? not sure):
  <http://code.google.com/p/scat/downloads/list

License:
  <http://tracker.squeakland.org/secure/attachment/13870/ScratchPlugin-Permission.txt>

Discussion:
  <http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/beginners/2010-April/007037.html>

Issue on SqueakLand:
  <http://tracker.squeakland.org/browse/SQ-354>

Building on Cog:
  <http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/pipermail/pharo-project/2011-July/051817.html>

Thanks,
Dave