Re: Gtk DirectFB backend (again...)

[Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi gmail com>]

On Sat, 2010-09-04 at 19:47 +0200, Lionel Landwerlin wrote:

> Last week, I have seen that GTK+ 3.0 has drop the DirectFB backend
> because no maintainer was carrying it (which I wasn't aware of). 

that's frankly odd, since the backend has been known to be broken since
the 2.14 release, which happened two years ago.

> This week Sven pushed the patches I made for GTK+ 2.22. I would really
> like to see GTK+ work well on DirectFB, that's why I would like to step
> up as a maintainer for the backend.

start by maintaining a clone of the gtk+ repository, reinstating the
backend, making it work and *keeping up* with the changes in master.
before 3.0, or 3.2, it can be re-evaluated if the dfb backend should
once again be integrated within the main repository.

I'm sorry, but taking maintainership offers at face value, especially
after all the history we had with that backend, doesn't feel at all
right to me; the main problem of the dfb backend is that it gets
"maintained" in bursts, whenever some entity (most likely commercial)
decides to bump up their dependency on gtk and finds that the backend
has been badly broken.

maintaining a gdk backend requires continuous work to keep up with
internal changes, and it also entails a modicum of showing up at the
meetings to at least give direction and feedback when those internal
changes are planned.

ciao,
 Emmanuele.

-- 
W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.name
B: http://blogs.gnome.org/ebassi