Re: AW: The storage interface cleanup

[Martin Baulig <martin home-of-linux org>]

Oh guys, can you please use normal mail quoting like every normal person
does, this thread is getting extremely hard to read and follow.

Thanks.

Dietmar Maurer <dietmar maurer-it com> writes:

> Dietmar Maurer <dietmar maurer-it com> writes:
> 
> > Miguel de Icaza wrote:
> > 
> > > It seems like a lot of pain inflicted on everyone for the sake of
> > > a few changes to Nautilus as Dietmar pointed out.
> > 
> > I think there is a broad consensus that we need to change the
> > Storage interface, and eazel have to cope with that since
> > they are using a library (bonobo) that is not even released. Besides,
> > none of the eazel people denied that it is not much work to
> > make the changes.
> > 
> > So please let me make the changes. They are necessary and it
> > is less work to make them now.
> > 
> 
> Here is the thing. We were originally supposed to have an API freeze
> for Bonobo nearly two months ago, at the start of September. If we
> keep breaking the freeze for "would be nice" rather than "must have"
> things, GNOME 1.4 will never ship. Every change is potentially
> destabilizing, and API changes even more so. For example, there are at
> least 100 distinct Nautilus bugs in bugzilla.eazel.com that can be
> directly attributed to the Bonobo UI handler change (counting both
> fixed and unfixed issues), and that doesn't even count the things that
> were fixed without filing a bug. Your change is much smaller than
> that, granted, but at some point one needs to draw the line.
> 
> [Dietmar Maurer]  I have tried to make the changes before the
> freeze. Due to several reasons this was not possible.
> 
> I would suggest to take a look at the code that implements
> the Storage and Stream interfaces. Many things are broken,
> unimplemented or inconsistent (really!!!!!). So I can't take you serious, 
> if you say that those changes would destabilize something.
> My goal was to fix those bugs, and the first step is the api
> cleanup.
> 
> If there were some reasonable change review process for Bonobo right
> now, I personally would not object to changes like this Stream one -
> it seems like it may well be low impact. But as it stands now,
> accepting one change feels like opening the floodgates to possibly
> many more. 
> 
> [Dietmar Maurer]  ??? don't expect an answer.
> 
> Personally, I'm gravely disappointed that Miguel and Michael, who
> promised us (well, certain Eazel executives) a freeze starting about a
> week ago in exchange for us agreeing to port the the new UI handler
> and accept it going forward, never properly announced that there was
> an API freeze (actually, a semi API freeze, excluding API changes
> needed to fix bugs in GNOME 1.4 critical packages, and a few specific
> things like the studlyCaps renaming) and have not been enforcing
> it. Rather, they expect Eazel people to explain and enforce their
> freeze, all the while arguing for more changes.
> 
> I don't like being in that position, and I don't think anyone else on
> the Nautilus team or at Eazel does either. We're not the Bonobo
> maintainers and don't have the authority to make the final decision,
> yet we must repeatedly defend the policy that the maintainers promised
> us, sometimes against the maintainers themselves.
> 
> I feel bad that your changes might not get into Bonobo for GNOME 1.4,
> but it's really not the fault of anyone on the Nautilus team that your
> patches were ignored for so long. I do think mostly they are good
> changes and should have gone in long ago, but I also think it's too
> late now.
> 
> So we are not going to say no to you, Dietmar. We will leave it up to
> Miguel and Michael to keep their own promises.
> 
> [Dietmar Maurer]  I think you already agreed to my proposed changes
> a week before the freeze (see your old mails). Due to several reasons
> I was unable to make the changes before the freeze.
> 
> I think it would be nice if we both try to work together. I have already
> put some constraints to the api changes. They will have a very minimal
> impact on nautilus and those very little changes will prevent us (and
> maybe you) from many problems in the future.
> 
> Please notice that nautilus is not the only application that
> uses bonobo, and many of them use or will use the Stoarge and
> Stream interfaces. So we consider this a release critical thing
> which will have to be fixed. 
> 
> Your argumentation is more or less: ok, your changes make sense, 
> but they are not important as nautilus can live with the current api, 
> so there is no reason to change it. 
> This is IMHO a little bit selfish, considering the fact 
> that the required changes for nautilus are small, even if we are
> behind the freeze.
> 
> So please say "Yes" to the changes.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 	Dietmar
> .  
> 
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> 

-- 
Martin Baulig
martin gnome org (private)
baulig suse de (work)