Re: GDM API Change Request

[Elijah Newren <newren gmail com>]

On 1/27/06, Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron sun com> wrote:

> Elijah/Federico:
>
> I have a question.  I understand that GDM is not a part of the Platform
> so isn't officially bound by the API freeze rules.  However, GDM is one
> of a handful of modules that exposes API via its configuration files
> that would cause GNOME users a big headache if the API were to break.
>
> Therefore, it would seem to make sense for GDM to follow the ABI freeze
> rules.  Would it make sense to make GDM a part of the Platform?  If so,
> how would I go about proposing that this module be added to the
> Platform?  I realize this may not make sense since the Platform is
> really designed as a "developer platform" with its API intended for
> use by developers whereas GDM's API is configuration files that are
> modified by users/non-developers/sysadmin/theme designers.  Perhaps
> it would make sense if certain modules like GDM could be flagged as
> being a part of the ABI-freeze process, but not part of the "platform"?
>
> Other modules that implement various FreeDesktop specification that
> shouldn't break might also be the sort of API that would make sense
> to follow ABI freeze rules if anybody decides to change/modify/extend
> them.
>
> It certainly makes me more comfortable to have the release team look
> over API change requests for GDM when they happen late in the release
> cycle.  However, I understand if this is beyond the scope of the
> release team.  If your response is that it is just up to me, as the
> maintainer, to make sure API is managed in a sane way for GDM, then
> I will understand.  I was just wondering.

To get GDM proposed for the platform, you'd have to make the proposal
on d-d-l before the feature/module freeze.  However, as you pointed
out, I don't think it'd make a lot of sense.

I think it'd be nice to come up with infrastructure that you talk
about for marking certain modules or portions of modules as being
subject to API/ABI freeze (or parts of it such as not allowing changes
while allowing additions at any time).  But it's really not something
that we have at this time, so those modules that do make more
guarantees than what is required of the release set (e.g. how gtk+
required documentation for API even before we recently added that
rule, gstreamer requiring testcases for plugins, libwnck not changing
API/ABI after freeze) are up to the maintainers to police.

Technically, this isn't all that different from the requirements
imposed by the release set as we have to rely heavily on maintainers
to do the checking for us--we've missed things lots of times when
maintainers haven't been watching for us, including hard code freeze
breaks.

I would really like there to be an easier way for us to detect freeze
breakages (like the string people have), and also even help provide
oversight in extra cases where it is wanted such as in your case, I'm
just not sure how to do so at this time.  Anyone else have any great
ideas (or code or infrastructure) for this?  Maybe federico or J5
knows...?

Elijah