MUSHclient download count

Just out of interest, it seems that in January this year, 3,539 copies of MUSHclient version 4.37 were downloaded from this site.

However the number of downloads of the MUSHclient source is very low (like, 15 or so - it hard to tell because some of the source releases are by "diffs" rather than a full version).

However in December last year, 4,183 copies of MUSHclient version 4.27 were downloaded - that was when version 4.27 was the one mentioned on the Downloads page. In November, 3,319 copies of that version were downloaded.

Meanwhile, the main forum URL itself (/forum/bbshowpost.php) was accessed 189,246 times this January, which roughly agrees with the figure shown on the main forum page of 6,221 reads per day, multiplied by 29 days, taking into account that reading the main page, or section lists, does not count as reading a thread, for the purposes of the forum-maintained counter.

You are announcing your program as freeware and not OpenSource. I haven't know that you have published the source code until now.

I just downloaded the source and thought of some small new features to play around, but then I had to realize that you have to compile it with Microsoft Visual Studio v6.0, which isn't possible for me, because it isn't available for free and as far as I have heard incompatible to former releases. And I haven't found any README in the source ball with building details or dependencies, only a thread that describes the source code organization.

That are just my experiences.
Aryzu

It isn't a secret about the source code. Each time a new version is announced I mention where the source can be obtained, or where the "diffs" from the previous version are. For example:

http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/?bbtopic_id=1

You notice there that "Full source code for version 4.37 released" is one of the latest topics (as I write this).

I regret that it uses Visual Studio to compile (which isn't free), however for that matter you also need to use Windows to run MUSHclient (which also isn't free), plus you need to buy a PC and get an Internet connection. The fact remains that the source code is freely available.

When I started development of MUSHclient in 1995, alternatives like Cygwin, or wxWidgets were not available, or did not work reliably. Also MUSHclient was initially not Freeware or Open Source, so the fact that it used a commercial compiler was not a big issue.

Unfortunately as well, the MFC libraries that MUSHclient uses heavily are not themselves open source, and changing to other methods (like the STL) would be an enormous amount of work. Perhaps that is what Microsoft intended?

Microsoft had previously released Visual Studio Lite (I think it was called) - I can't find a reference to it right now, but I think it was Visual Studio 6, released as a free download. Unfortunately again, it did not include the MFC libraries.

One or two people on this forum have reported successfully getting the source to compile, and in the process I fixed a few incompatibilities with later versions of Visual Studio. I can't say for sure which versions it will work with, perhaps someone else can comment? I don't plan to spend hundreds of dollars just to see for myself.

See this thread for "Notes about compiling MUSHclient source under MVC++ .NET 2003":

http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/bbshowpost.php?id=7746

Maybe the Visual Studio Lite I was thinking about is Visual Studio Express:

http://www.microsoft.com/Express/

I can't seem to make the links work on that page, Microsoft has once again introduced some new product "Silverlight" with the claim "this site looks best using Silverlight".

What they mean is "this site doesn't work unless you download Silverlight". So much for web browser compatibility.

Express is a very limited compiler. It does not include the ATL or MFC libraries and headers, which I believe MushClient needs. It's main purpose is marketing/propaganda to get people introduced to .bloat programming. Oops, I mean .Net .


Silverlight is MS's attempt to compete with Adobe Flash. It's basically Flash presented consistent to the .Net paradigm with hidef codecs and DRM. Novell is porting it to Linux, while MS is doing the Mac version in house. It actually includes a subset of the CLR which is kind of interesting. .Net applications could become cross platform???
The plugin works for me in IE, FF2, FF3, and Chrome.

I can get 'Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition' or 'Microsoft Visual Studio 6 Pro' over the msdnaa program of our university. I am just waiting for the validation.