Re: libproxy as external dependency

[Nathaniel McCallum <nathaniel natemccallum com>]

Dan Winship wrote:
> Nathaniel McCallum wrote:
>   
> > I'd like to propose libproxy (LGPL 2.1+;
> > http://code.google.com/p/libproxy/) as a blessed external dependency for
> > GNOME 2.26.  libproxy is currently used by vlc and neon and libsoup and
> > webkit are considering adopting it.
> >     
>
> You need a comma somewhere... Since I know libsoup doesn't currently use
> it, you must mean either:
>
>   libproxy is currently used by vlc ... and neon and libsoup and webkit
>   are considering adopting it.
>
> OR
>
>   libproxy is currently used by vlc and neon ... and libsoup and webkit
>   are considering adopting it.
>
>
> Anyway, Nathaniel is proposing this for GNOME primarily so that libsoup
> can depend on it, and here's the story with that:
>
> For various reasons, mostly bad, libsoup has never handled reading the
> HTTP proxy configuration out of GConf itself, which means that apps
> using libsoup either have to do it themselves (which sucks), or else
> they ignore the problem and then don't work for people who need proxies
> (which also sucks).
>
> I've been meaning to fix this for a while, but haven't. Anyway, I'd like
> to fix it for 2.26, which means either:
>
>     1. libsoup takes a mandatory dependency on libproxy
> or
>     2. libsoup takes an optional dependency on libproxy, and then also
>        has gconf-specific code to be used in case libproxy isn't
>        present.
>
> It can't be "libsoup takes an optional dependency on libproxy, and
> doesn't handle proxies if libproxy isn't present", because then apps
> can't rely on libsoup doing the right thing for them, so we'd end up
> with proxy code in *both* libsoup (via libproxy) *and* the apps (via
> gconf directly), which would be even worse than what we have now.
>
> Now I *can* do option 2 (libsoup has codepaths for both libproxy and
> gconf directly), and that's what I will end up doing if libproxy isn't
> accepted as an external dependency, but it would be simpler not to have
> the extra codepath (there are all sorts of icky bits if you want to do
> this 100% right, like parsing and matching IPv6 network masks in
> ignore_hosts, etc).
>
> Also, if GNOME makes libproxy a required external dependency, that means
> all distros have to ship it, which then makes it easier for other
> applications to start depending on it, which brings us one step closer
> to universal proxy workingness.
>
> All of which is to say, +1.
>   
One comment?  that's all so far? ;)

Nathaniel