Re: Dependency libraries and ABI

[Christopher Blizzard <blizzard redhat com>]

James Henstridge wrote:
> Christopher Blizzard wrote:
>
> > James Henstridge wrote:
> >
> > > Is it possible to build Xft2 outside of the X source tree?  If so, 
> > > then maybe it would be okay to tell people that they needed to update 
> > > their Xft in order to get AA text.  Telling everyone to upgrade their 
> > > X libs (which may involve building the whole X tree) sounds less 
> > > likely to happen.
> >
> >
> >
> > Yes, it is possible with relatively minor pain.  I would suggest that 
> > if people here are really worried about Xft2 portability because it's 
> > not going to be on systems for a while, ship Xft2 with Gtk2.  It 
> > doesn't require any server side changes and is relatively self 
> > contained.  It's a relatively simple solution that's going to make 
> > life for Gtk2 users much easier in the future.
> >
> > It solves the pkg-config problems, because we don't have to include it 
> > in the link line (it's already in the library) and when it does make 
> > it onto the system, pkg-config can just start spitting out the 
> > dependency for developers.  Current apps won't be affected either 
> > since the gtk2 library can pull in the dependency directly.  It's a 
> > real win-win there.
> >
> > There are the usual problems, though.  It means more code duplication 
> > as time goes on because more and more systems will include Xft2.  
> > However, I think this is a relatively minor issue since system 
> > distributors will be able to keep full control over the Xft2/Gtk2 
> > relationship and as long as you can build Gtk2 both with and without 
> > the local Xft2 copy, things should be OK.  We can punt problem to 
> > distributors in a way that app developers won't suffer and in the long 
> > run, I think that it actually makes life easier for the distributors 
> > as well since it makes app compatibility easier.
>
>
> Having some gtk2's compiled with Xft2 built in, and some linking to it 
> as a separate library (depending on what was on the system when it was 
> compiled) will probably have the same problems.

As long as it doesn't link directly to the apps, it would work, yeah.

> If we could point people at a separate Xft2 package to install, I think 
> that would be enough.  As Keith said, this shouldn't be too difficult, 
> and can be replaced with the Xft from Xfree86 when someone upgrades.  If 
> there are multiple programs that are going to require the new Xft, then 
> this would probably be the easiest way of handling it.

Well, maybe.  I'm just afraid that people will end up with libraries of 
the same name and then get into trouble down the road.

--Chris

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Christopher Blizzard
http://people.redhat.com/blizzard/
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