Bonobo core API freeze

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel helixcode com>]

Hello hackers,

    We are starting to approach the release of GNOME 1.4.  With 1.4,
Bonobo will be becoming the most important integrated part of the
GNOME platform.  Our goal is to ship Bonobo 1.0 with a frozen API as
part of GNOME 1.4.  Also, the applications that use Bonobo -- in
particular, Nautilus -- are starting to enter feature freezes in the
near future, and so the libraries should follow suit.

   So it is time for us to make major efforts to stabilize the core
Bonobo APIs.  We do not by any means want to slow down the enhancement
and extension of Bonobo (in particular, the Moniker work and the
PropertyBag revamp), but we need to set a freeze on the core API to
allow applications to stabilize and so that we can focus on bug fixes.

    And so we are now entering a *hard freeze* on the core Bonobo
APIs.  This includes:

    * The Bonobo unkown IDL and C API.

    * The Control and Embeddable IDLs and C APIs.

    * The Stream/Storage IDLs and C APIs.

    * The Persistence IDLs and C APIs.

    * The UIHandler IDL and C API.

Any development outside of these areas is free to continue normally,
as long as it does not touch the core API.  The only changes that will
be allowed to the core of Bonobo (as defined above) are:

    * The StudlyCaps rename (if it happens).

    * Bug fixes.

    * API extensions which do not affect any existing application
      code.

This is an "Arctic Tundra" freeze, meaning that the only thing that
will cause us to break it is if we discover an API problem which
either (a) kills people or (b) is so easy to change that everyone
agrees it's no big deal.

    We will not be creating a branch here because of the added work of
maintaining the branch, merging patches between branches, etc.  But we
will revert API changes that are made to core Bonobo in HEAD until 1.0
is released.  If you want to do any special core API changes, please
do them in your own branch.  API changes which do not affect the core
can go into HEAD, no problem.

Best wishes,
Miguel