Re: RFC: GnomeMDI

[George <jirka 5z com>]

On Sun, Jun 24, 2001 at 11:24:23AM +0200, ERDI Gergo wrote:
> Free software has traditionally been very fast on adapting to new APIs
> (just witness how many programs depended on various
> incompatible versions of libgtk1.1-* before gtk+ 1.2 on Debian, driving 
> maintainers crazy:), so the time frame from 2.0 to 3.0 should be more than
> enough for those to leave deprecated stuff.
> And I can't really care for closed-source proprietary applications (I
> don't know if there is a single closed-source app out there that uses
> GNOME).

I won't lose any sleep if some proprietary software shop is screwed.
However, there are many things written internally in corporations that are in
that case neither proprietary nor free then (even GPL you can keep internal),
and I think this is something which we should support.  People writing
internal proggies for GTK+/GNOME only spread the use of free software.

And not all free software is that activately maintained.  Fast moving APIs
can easily make still useful apps obscolete quickly.  Take it from the users
perspective.  User gets used to app gfoo, but gfoo maintainer just doesn't
have the time to port to GNOME 2 widgets, so he keeps using the libcompat
ones.  By GNOME 3 time the app is using non-existant widgets, and the user is
screwed because by then all distros have dropped it cuz it don't work with
newest GNOME.

So while I think that some widgets can safely be just wiped by GNOME 3 time,
because no one is using them.  Some of them should not.  And this mostly
applies to the app framework ones since those are the hardest ones to move
away from to new API.

George

-- 
George <jirka 5z com>
   Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who.
                       -- Monty Python