Re: New modules in 2.14

[Elijah Newren <newren gmail com>]

On 1/20/06, Johan Dahlin <johan gnome org> wrote:
> > Well, no library in the desktop can be relied upon to remain API or
> > ABI stable; that's the reason they are in the desktop.  The difference
> > with this lib, _if_ I remember correctly, is that those other libs in
> > the desktop were meant to be used by whoever wanted to use them,
> > whereas libmetacity-private was expected to not be used by anything
> > other than control-center (with the implication that if we make any
> > changes that breaks anything other than the control center, we just
> > don't care and won't consider it a bug).
>
> Is it not similar to wnck, which mostly the panel uses?

Similar, but not the same.  Havoc intended libwnck to be used by other
apps besides just the panel.  And other apps do use it.  From the
README:

"libwnck isn't supported in the devel platform, which means OS vendors won't
guarantee the API/ABI long-term, but authors of open source apps
should feel free to use libwnck as users can always recompile against
a new version.  (And the API/ABI has historically changed very little,
I'm not changing it gratuitously or without soname increments.)"

While libwnck doesn't have API/ABI requirements from the release set
it is in, we agreed a release cycle or two back to not break API/ABI
after feature freeze.  Also, when making API/ABI changes that breaks
something, or adding API to libwnck that certain modules need to use,
I make a best effort (which is sometimes lacking, in particular I just
realized I've always forgotten to notify the bindings people -- which
is perhaps why you see it as no different) to at least notify apps
that I know are affected and often also provide patches.

I wouldn't bother notifying anyone if I broke ABI of
libmetacity-private (other than control-center), even if it was during
a micro point release during the stable cycle.

However...

> To me the name metacity-private is just another way of saying
> it's an unstable library and don't complain to us if we break your
> application.

If you're fine with that, feel free to go ahead.  :)  I do have to say
that it does sound like a very cool use you have for
libmetacity-private.  And, you're probably unlikely to get any
breakage since no one (least of all me) seems to be interested in
working on anything theme related in Metacity right now.  It's just
that we're not going to make any guarantees.