Fellow OpenBSD Users,
What are academics and others who require citation management using in
OpenBSD nowadays?
The two main open source citation management applications are Zotero
(zotero.org) and JabRef (jabref.org). A decade ago, Zotero could be run
as a Firefox extension, and JabRef could be run with Java as a simple
.jar, but both only have been available as larger stand-alone
applications for several years.
In FreeBSD Ports, thanks to a push there for porting end-user utilities
for academic and office work over the past 2-3 years, there is both
science/zotero (native Zotero build with patches) and print/jabref
(Linuxulator JabRef build based on the official portable GNU/Linux
binary). In OpenBSD Ports, as of this moment, there actually is not any
citation management tool available.
I have tried several approaches to getting Zotero or JabRef running,
including (to see what might be doable) a few that are non-viable for
actual work (since they would not sync with LibreOffice, etc.):
- Running old Zotero extension (rather than current stand-alone) in
Seamonkey --> incompatible (always only for Firefox)
- Running 6-8 old versions of JabRef (spanning 3.X, 4.X, & 5.X) in all 3
versions of jdk currently in ports --> all non-executable because of no
access to OpenFX/JavaFX
- (More seriously) compiling current Zotero --> halfway there? (see next)
COMPILING ZOTERO?
Here are the official directions to compile Zotero:
https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/client_coding/building_the_standalone_client
A friend in irc helped find that `npm run build` works correctly in
OpenBSD 7.2+ if we first set `export NODE_OPTIONS=openssl-legacy-provider`
Yet, the subsequent build steps fail for me, regardless of whether `-p
l` (Linux) is chosen inside the official /zotero-standalone-build
repository or `-p f` (FreeBSD) is chosen from Mikael Urankar's fork with
clearly labeled patches for FreeBSD:
https://github.com/MikaelUrankar/zotero-standalone-build
See also (GitHub) MikaelUrankar/zotero-pdftools for Urankar's patches to
Poppler PDF Tools for FreeBSD to go along with /zotero-standalone-build,
as well as MikaelUrankar/zotero-ports for his science/zotero FreeBSD
Port Makefile.
The error messages in the second half of the Zotero build steps on
OpenBSD are many, but the core of what seems to me to be happening is
that (even in the expected Bash) OpenBSD is not manipulating the old
Firefox (runtime) upon which Zotero (stand-alone) is built in the way(s)
that Zotero requires. Presumably, part of the solution will be pointing
the script to old Firefox (xul runner) *for OpenBSD* (it currently
relies on firefox-60.9.0esr.tar.*).
-----
Bounty or simple "thank you"? There will be lunch on me at BSDCan in
exchange for the generosity of whichever person can help those of us who
rely on Zotero or JabRef by pointing us to a way to run either (or
both?) inside OpenBSD.
Gratias ago vobis, et oro Deum vos benedicare,
Corey
-----
Corey Stephan, Ph.D.
coreystephan.com
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