What is Guppi? ============== Guppi is a GPLed Gnome-based guile-scriptable plot program with integrated statistics capabilities. It is still in an early stage of development. The current functionality is very limited. The source code is the only documentation. Contact Info ============ The Guppi web page is at http://www.gnome.org/projects/guppi. To subscribe to the Guppi mailing list, send a message with "subscribe" as the subject to guppi-list-request@gnome.org. Bug reports and suggestions can be formally submitted via the Gnome bug-tracking system at http://bugzilla.gnome.org. Keep in mind, though, that Guppi is a alpha-level software. We *know* that there are lots of bugs and that there is a long list of missing features. The only bug reports that would be really useful to us would involve subtle issues. (If you aren't sure whether or not your problem is subtle, wait a few releases before making a report.) Other correspondence about Guppi can be sent to Jon Trowbridge . If you are interested in Guppi and live in the Chicago area, drop me (Jon) a line. Helping Out =========== If you would like to assist in Guppi's development, please do! There is plenty to do, even if you aren't a programmer. If you are a programmer and have specific enhancements and/or fixes that you want to do, you should probably contact Jon Trowbridge and/or guppi-list *before* you start. Guppi is young enough to be in constant flux, and unannounced patches may be rejected because they do not integrate well with Guppi's planned future development. (By the way, I know that my C coding practices are not even close to the GNU style guidelines. Please humor me on this issue.) Requirements ============ * Ximian Gnome or comparable Guppi's development tracks the Ximian Gnome system. RPMs and .debs are available: see www.ximian.com. If you are building Guppi from sources, be sure to install the development packages as well. (These usually have names like "foo-dev" or "libfoo123-dev".) * gnome-xml * gnome-print * Guile 1.3 or later. Earlier versions will not work. (Anything older than 1.3 is *really* old...) * perl 5 If you are building from the sources, you need some incarnation of perl 5. Doesn't everyone have perl laying around? Installation Notes ================== Some platforms get unresolved symbols when building the shared libraries. A work around is to run configure with the --enable-sluggish-linking option, which causes extra information to be passed in when the libraries are being built. (This fix imposes a surprisingly large amount of extra overhead on unaffected platforms; hence the name of the option.) A Note About Licenses ===================== As mentioned above, Guppi is distributed under the Gnu General Public License (GPL). If you are not familiar with the GPL, you can read about in the file COPYING that you should have gotten along with Guppi. If you can't find that file, you can read the text of the GPL at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html. The GPL does not restrict your use of Guppi. You may use it, modify it, or extend it in any way you want. However, any loadable modules or plug-ins that are designed for use with Guppi are considered to be extensions of Guppi, and hence may only be distributed under a license that is legally compatible with the GPL. Guppi is designed so that you can use its plotting features in your own programs by linking in its libraries. Be aware, though, that Guppi's libraries are, like the Guppi application itself, distributed under the terms of the GPL --- not the LGPL. Therefore any program that does so must be distributed under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license. You can learn about licenses that are and are not GPL-compatible at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html. If you have any questions about whether or not your code is distributable, contact Jon Trowbridge .