Re: gnome-vfs-2.17.91 hard dependency on gnome-mime-data

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Wed, 2007-02-28 at 19:16 +0100, Fryderyk Dziarmagowski wrote:
> --- Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 2007-02-27 at 17:54 +0100, Fryderyk Dziarmagowski wrote:
> > > --- Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net> wrote:
> > 
> > > > No, it isn't only a run-time dep, or at least shouldn't be. The
> > > > gnome-mime-data doesn't have to be in the same place as the libraries
> > > > you're installing, and gnome-vfs should still be able to find the files.
> > > 
> > > You can safely remove PKG check from configure and build g-vfs without
> > > smallest problems. You can even run all major GNOME apps without it.
> > > Forcing people to use something that is not needed it's IMO wrong.
> > 
> > You can do all sorts of shit manually if you want. That doesn't change a
> > single thing. We enforce backwards compatibility. 
> 
> Enforcing backward compatibility at build time? What compatibility is
> that? It's broken idea.
> 
> > Maybe some third party app still use the gnome-vfs APIs that use the old
> > mime data. We don't just break it to save a few bytes.
> 
> Right. And in such case third party app should depend on
> gnome-mime-data. Such app should force you to install it, because it
> can't run without it.

How exactly is an existing package supposed to start
having a dependency it never had before?  The point
of backwards compatibility is to be compatible with
existing programs, not new ones.

Take a fictitious program, Beanstalk.  Beanstalk 1.2
was released in July of 2005.  It used gnome-vfs and
relied on features that only work with gnome-mime-data.
When it was released, gnome-mime-data was a requirement
of gnome-vfs, and those features worked.

There was no reason for the Beanstalk developers to
make version 1.2 require gnome-mime-data.  Now, with
the upcoming 2.4 release, they can certainly introduce
a gnome-mime-data dependency, if they still use those
particular features.  But they can't magically change
the requirements of the 1.2 packages that people are
still installing and using.

People don't always use the latest versions of their
programs.  Heck, sometimes people use programs that
aren't even being updated anymore.  The whole point
of backwards compatibility is to make that possible.

--
Shaun