[orca-list] A bit more about the 3.1.90 release: Dependencies for Orca

[Joanmarie Diggs <joanied gnome org>]

Hey all.

Here is part 2 of the series of 3.1.90 notes. In response to Steve's question:

> When we get closer to a more stable master, could you provide a
> current list of known dependencies? I ask this on behalf of us package
> maintainers <smile>.

While we're not yet "closer to a more stable master," I wanted to answer
this now.

Up until recently, it was fairly simple to keep Orca largely independent
of hard, version-specific dependencies. For instance, Orca from master
should have worked with either AT-SPI1 or AT-SPI2. And as long as you
had a version of python and a version of Gtk+ 2 from the past few years,
Orca should have been fine. Of course, having the latest stable versions
is better due to features and bug fixes, but Orca would still largely do
the right thing either way. Those days are, for the moment, over.

As I've stated elsewhere, recent changes outside of Orca turned Orca's
introspection conversion from "something we really should finish and
commit" to "something we must finish and commit or else Orca will no
longer function as soon as GNOME 3.1.90 is released." Converting to
introspection has, as a side effect, an associated need to use Gtk+ 3.
Furthermore, the act of implementing the introspection work resulted in
the discovery of bugs outside of Orca whose fixes are not just "nice to
have," but "needed so that using Orca doesn't crash or hang."

In order to ensure that we have the environment we think we have in
order to maximize the likelihood of things working as expected, I have
started adding dependencies as build requirements in configure.ac. At
the moment these new dependencies are:

* at-spi2 version 2.1.90 or later
* Gtk+ 3 version 3.1.14 or later
* pygobject version 2.90.3 or later (see note at the end)

My plan is to keep bumping those minimum versions until they become
stable (defined here from the practical, "works as expected" standpoint
and not simply "part of the stable GNOME release."). Once they do become
stable, I shall only bump as needed. In other words, I fully expect to
one day be back to the situation we were in namely: As long as you are
within a year or two of the current releases, Orca from master should
work. But that day is not today, and it's likely not going to be
tomorrow either.

In addition, as you likely have already concluded, should I discover
there is another dependency out there that Orca must have in order to
function, it will get added to configure.ac.

So Steve, that's the long answer to your question. The short answer, as
you no doubt have figured out by now is: Try to build Orca and see.
<grins> But I will try to get into the habit of including the minimum
versions in the release notes when those versions change. Sorry for
failing to do that the other day!

Lastly, it was brought to my attention by the release team this morning
that the pygobject maintainer did not do a 2.90.3 release yet. I'm
afraid pygobject 2.90.3 is required due to fixes which are necessary in
order for Orca to work. As a result, the release team and I are going to
follow up with that module maintainer to request he roll a tarball. In
the meantime, pygobject from master claims to be 2.90.3 and is what I
have been using.

Thanks guys! Take care.
--joanie