Re: [boost] [gsoc 2008] JSON Archives for Boost.serialization

From: Esteve Fernandez (esteve_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-03-21 11:08:40

El Viernes 21 Marzo 2008 14:01:30 Jeff Garland escribió:
> > - what about Unicode? I know that Boost.Regex supports Unicode if
> > compiled against ICU and the JSON spec states that everything must be in
> > Unicode (correct me if I'm wrong)
>
> Don't know, but this is certainly an issue.  There's some utf8 facet stuff
> floating around in boost (boost/detail/utf8_codecvt_facet.hpp) I think --
> I'm not sure if that solves your problem though.

As Robin pointed out, there's some trickery for characters not in BMP, but I 
couldn't find any mention of it in the header file. Should I ask the original 
authors privately or are they in the Boost mailing list?

> > - TinyJSON and JSON.Spirit both use a MIT-like license (JSON.Spirit is
> > licensed under CPOL). The Boost license is compatible with them but,
> > could it pose a problem? There's JSONcpp [1] as well, which is public
> > domain.
>
> MIT is compatible, but we're really trying get everything to be Boost
> license.

IANAL, but I think the MIT allows relicensing to other free software licenses. 
However, if I were the author, I would find of bad etiquette to do it without 
asking me. So I'll mail the author of the chosen parser and see if he agrees 
to license it under the Boost license. If he doesn't agree... well, playing 
with Boost.Spirit is always fun and the JSON grammar is not exceptionally 
complicated.

> > - wading through the Boost mailing list archives, I found a message [2]
> > by Daryle Walker in which he expressed interest in a JSON serializer some
> > while ago (2005), but I think it wasn't discussed any further. Eric
> > Newhuis wrote again about having a JSON archive just a few weeks ago [3]
>
> Others are chiming in...

Yep, I just pointed that to know if there was another discussion that I was 
able to find in the archives. But I guess there hasn't been any.

> > - which platforms must be supported? I can only provide support to GCC
> > under Linux, but I guess it has to support MSVC and some other platforms.
> > Will it have to be available for all the platforms supported by Boost at
> > the end of the summer or is it more of a process? That is, given that one
> > of the
>
> That's up to you to propose.  Given that we here at Boost are interested in
> cross-platform code it's certainly better to have a broader support.  In
> case you aren't aware, you can download an free (called express) version of
> vc8. But no matter, even if you don't test directly on any other platforms
> if you still to std c++ you should be ok.  The mentors and others on the
> list will also help you with this issue.

I knew about the express editions that Microsoft provides about its products, 
but thought the Visual C++ one was not supported by Boost. If it's ok to use 
it, then I would be glad to add it to the list of supported platforms of the 
JSON archives.

> > purposes of GSoC is to involve more people into free software/open source
> > projects, whoever (I hope it's me :-)) implements the JSON serializer,
> > will become its maintainer too and will take care of all the tasks
> > related to accept patches, track bugs, add support for future/incomplete
> > platforms, etc.
>
> That's the general idea :-)

Well, let's hope I have to take those tasks :-D

Cheers.