As OS X users are aware, OS X builds are something the team has struggled to get out on time. No currently active developer feels competent to create them, so we need to bring someone in especially for that.
We have discussed creating a server running OS X that can be used to perform the builds. Hopefully this would be set up by the OS X expert but could be used by other team members for building releases.
Please post here or PM me if you are interested in doing the OS X builds for NuBits and B&C Exchange on an ongoing basis. We can negotiate compensation.
Jordan, I was actually going to PM you about this today. As you know Ben also did the OS X versions for Peerunity and Peercoin core and we’ve struggled to get something out in time for the v0.5 protocol switch, which was yesterday. One member on PeercoinTalk (backpacker69) started working with us to release an OS X version of Peerunity. This was done in this thread…
From what I understand, the package still needs to be signed and the community was considering donating to pay for that.
I told Backpacker69 last night that we also currently don’t have anyone to build OS X versions of Nu and B&C Exchange. He was able to build an OS X version of B&C v4.0.1 last night and gave me the download link to it. I figured though that you would rather wait until the next release with default data feeds to put the OS X version out right? I have asked backpacker69 to create an account here.
i am willing to help with osx builds for your community, I’ve been lurking for awhile here without registering and I do hope that you are successful and find ways to share your success with peershares and peercoin projects.
i do not currently have a developer account with apple, as I never had problems with installation of my packages, it costs money and I do think it’s silly to pay apple to sign freeware, but if you want packages signed and maybe put it on the market, you’d have to fund the costs. it’s 100 usd per year at the moment.
it took me few hours over the weekend to set up the environment and process of building bcexchange, here’s the link to v4.0.1 https://rbfi.io/dl.php?key=/xgpw/bcexchange.dmg
shasum d24c7d00e5b48316ea48d33313d070864c0402b7
new builds wouldn’t take as long to build, I take it would take less than an hour from start to finish. if possible I’d prefer to become personally vested in your projects, if there are BKS 8eA3FVjGUE2KFDJy6qSQxZb3MZdoqLf3ZL, if not possible PPC is fine PACKERrvBkmkPSNNnDsPepbeT72hgwfztz
Welcome to the forum!
And thank you for making an OSX build!
I don’t know whether such a license to sign packages is topical. That’s a question to be answered by those who are more familiar with OSX.
Anyway, I bet we find an arrangement to cover your expenses
There will of course be ways to share - the code development is one obvious way, but economically there are opportunities as well.
The easiest way should be with NBT from the development fund.
But making a BKS grant would be an option as well.
@backpacker, would you accept payment in NBT (this would be way easier than making a grant for that (there are no development fund BKS available afaik) and with the NBT you can buy BKS here in case you prefer BKS to NBT)?
How much USD is your bill (just your efforts, Apple license not included)?
So far I’ve spent a little more than 4 hours on setting up the environment to build bcexchange and nu. bcexchange is ready to go as you can see and I’ve successfully built the nu 2.1.0 app, but it’s missing application icon, I’ll get that sorted tomorrow and will provide the link to dmg here as well.
After this initial setup is complete, I feel that generating every new version would take less and less time and I’ll be able to find other things I can help with in terms of development, maybe some tests and so on.
I don’t want to complicate things, NBT would work just as fine, if BKS would be a hassle to get organised.
it now seems obvious to me that v2.1.1 is not very stable, but i did manage to build it with icons and everything. I have built 2.0.3 as well just to see that my setup is working for different branches. Let me know if these builds are needed by anyone.
for some reason it’s very slow to synchronise, 2.0.3 seems faster to me, i’ll do some tests to provide more concrete information, also i read a thread here about problems with reindexing, is it outdated?
From my experience with that “download optimizations patch” on a RaspberryPi I remember that increased the speed approximately by a factor 5 to 10.
I was able to download the whole blockchain in approximately one day with that patch.
I am very happy to see this @backpacker. The team is discussing how we can invite you to help us on a regular basis and we will be contacting you shortly.
finally finished syncing the Nu blockchain, it seems like there’s an absolute boatload of ORPHANS that have to be dealt with during initial sync, does anyone know why?
of course shorter block period increases likelihood of orphans, but why would they be sent during initial sync? shouldn’t they have been long forgotten?
We’ve had multiple discussions about how to proceed and unfortunately, we cannot come up with a solution.
The nature of the problem is that creating a build requires quite a bit of trust. It would be easy to add code to the build that sent private keys to a remote database, for instance. We can’t seem to coordinate the work of experts like @backpacker with people we trust like sigmike in a way that produces secure builds.
The developers we trust know nothing about OS X. This is an open source project working on decentralised infrastructure. Our culture revolves around the values associated with Linux and is far from the centrally controlled world of Apple. With a small team and small budget, this has been difficult for us to manage, as all OS X users of NuBits and B&C Exchange are aware.
There is no question in my mind that NuBits and B&C Exchange should support OS X. It is equally clear that neither myself nor anyone on the team can make the builds. I am utterly ignorant of all things Apple and as a result have nothing to offer in this effort. But the code is open source, so anyone anywhere on the planet can make OS X builds at any time, as @backpacker has demonstrated. Trusted builds are another matter.
The combination of the fact that the source code needed to create builds is completely accessible to all at all times and that our team has no expertise in OS X builds means the responsibility for creating OS X builds should be outsourced beyond the team.
I am happy to facilitate payment to someone creating OS X builds from development funds for each organization, but that will be the extent of my involvement and responsibility for OS X builds. I won’t be making any attempts to coordinate OS X builds going forward. As a decentralised organization, that responsibility can and should be taken up by others.
