Re: New modules in 2.14



Sex, 2006-01-20 às 09:10 -0700, Elijah Newren escreveu:
> 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.

  This already happened once with wnck, with nasty results:

http://www.daa.com.au/pipermail/pygtk/2006-January/011660.html

  But we understand the limitations of API guarantees and live with it.

> 
> 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.

  So I've finally released the split g-p-e/g-p-d packages, leaving
metacity in g-p-e and untouched.  I almost thought about renaming to
metacity.private, but it's ugly, and I thought this discussion had died
out with no much concern.  At the time I received this email, I had
already uploaded the packages.  I hope this will not cause much concern,
but I guess renaming the module or issuing a warning during import is
still a viable option.

  Regards.

-- 
Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro
<gjc inescporto pt> <gustavo users sourceforge net>
The universe is always one step beyond logic.

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