Re: Upcoming platform deprecations

["Murray Cumming" <murrayc murrayc com>]

> <quote who="Vincent Untz">
>
>> "These modules are heading towards deprecation from the GNOME Developer
>> Platform (they may continue to be supported as individual projects,
>> however)."
>>
>> I wouldn't say they're not supported anymore, but simply deprecated.
>
> Note that I don't say they are unsupported now, just that they may
> continue
> to be supported as individual projects (after being deprecated). They're
> not
> deprecated *yet*, so we can't say that. :-)
>
>> Okay, it doesn't break API nor ABI to not support them. But it sounds
>> like
>> breaking the promise of a stable platform. I'm really not sure we should
>> say "they're not supported anymore".
>
> We're not - we're just saying that they're going to be deprecated soon.

However it's very easy to interepret that paragraph as "they are no longer
supported", so let's change the wording at least.

"We expect to deprecate these modules in a future version of GNOME when we
have suitable replacements for them. However, their ABI will never be
broken." might be simpler.

And anyway, we don't really "support" anything - we just don't break the
ABI, and we let various companies support them. "Support" would imply that
someone can come to us with a libbonoboui problem and expect a guarantee
of it being fixed.

However, I'm personally against making non-official official statements
that just spread doubt. An API is either deprecated or it's not. Anything
else should just be talk on a mailing list, and not an official statement
of API stability. This is also the opinion of the SUN guys who are
currently continuing privately (unfortunately) the API/ABI-stability
conversation.

Murray Cumming
murrayc murrayc com
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com