Re: First deprecate APIs and then remove them in the next major version

[Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi gmail com>]

On 17 December 2017 at 23:14, Daniel Kasak <d j kasak dk gmail com> wrote:

> > Just one example, gtk3 (yes 3, not even 4) is currently completely
> > unusable on
> > Mac, so I sent a patch to fix this:
> >
> >         https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=791174
> >
> > I know my patch is suboptimal, but to make this clear: it does not address
> > a
> > minor bug, this bug is a real show stopper on Mac, and this change is
> > purely
> > gtk internal. Of course it is not a clean solution, but there is no reason
> > to
> > simply apply this patch (at a bare minimum at least to the gtk3/stable
> > branch)
> > with a FIXME comment for now so that people on Mac can finally start using
> > gtk3
> > at all.
>
>
> I really have to agree. One of my bugs I raised in 2004 - which involves
> data loss - is still open. I submitted a patch ( which was difficult at the
> time - I only dabble in C when I absolutely have to ) which received very
> little feedback, and the bug has rotted since.

Yes, everyone has their own pet bug where they submitted a patch and
waited for feedback, as if GTK doesn't have ~3000 issues open at any
given time, and a constant stream of bugmail.

It would be *great* if we could review all incoming patches; sadly, we
either do that, or we spend time actually developing the toolkit.

Plus, if you have a patch lying in bugzilla for *13* years and you
never bothered to actually poke people about it, then I don't think
it'll ever get bumped up in terms of priority on the list of things to
do.

> "Send a patch" only goes so far. If patches don't get reviewed, or don't get
> sufficient feedback, and never get accepted, what's the point in sending
> patches?

Your role doesn't terminate at sending a patch.

It's your bug, your patch, and your responsibility for bringing it up
to the people *volunteering* to work on GTK. If you have a patch that
is languishing in Bugzilla, join the #gtk+ IRC channel on
irc.gnome.org, or send an email to gtk-devel-list.

Otherwise, you get exactly what you paid for.

Ciao,
 Emmanuele.

-- 
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[@] ebassi [@gmail.com]