[Xfce4-commits] r25185 - in libfrap/trunk/libfrap/menu: . tests

[Erik Harrison]

On 3/19/07, Jannis Pohlmann <jannis at xfce.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:15:59 +0100, Stephan Arts wrote:
>
> > On 3/19/07, Harold Aling <h.aling at home.nl> wrote:
> > >
> > >  Olivier Fourdan wrote:
> > >  -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > > Hash: SHA1
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi
> > >
> > > Stephan Arts wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >  Now that the most important menu spec tests are passed and Brian
> > > already uses FrapMenu in xfdesktop, shouldn't we move FrapMenu out
> > > of libfrap and into Xfce trunk? Of course this raises the question
> > > about how we plan to reorganize our libraries for Xfce 4.6 again -
> > > I'd be glad if we could come to a conclusion here soon.
> > >
> > >  No opinions?
> > >
> > >  Well, if we can agree on which Gtk+ version will be the minimal
> > > requirement for 4.6 (2.10 has been mentioned more then once on this
> > > list) we can decide which stuff is deprecated regarding this and
> > > perhaps some (new) freedesktop.org standards.
> > >
> > >  I'd really prefer 2.8 instead of 2.10, Edgy will ship with 2.8 and
> > > setting a dependency on gtk+-2.10 would exclude a large part of our
> > > user base.
> > >  Those on (x)Ubuntu Edgy probably won't install Xfce 4.6, as it
> > > probably won't be available through the standard repositories.
> > > Feisty Fawn (the soon-to-be current version) currently has v2.10.11
> > > of GTK+.
> > >
> > >  If Xfce 4.6 could really benefit from GTK+ 2.10, I'd say: go for
> > > it!
> >
> > Afaik, olivier was refering to debian etch instead of ubuntu edgy.
> > (especially the 'will ship' indicates he means a release which has not
> > been made yet, edgy has)
> > Debian currently has 2.10 in experimental, 2.8 is the version in
> > testing and unstable.
> >
> > A feature we might want to have is 'recent document support' which is
> > available since gtk 2.10. However, since 2.10 is not regarded stable
> > (even according to gtk.org so it seems), I think olivier is right on
> > the dependency on 2.8. We do not want a release which has all sorts of
> > bugs simply because it is impossible to run on stable libraries.
>
> I'm fine with GTK+ 2.8 even though I would prefer to got for 2.10.
> Recent documents is something we can live without for another
> (hopefully short) release cycle, IMHO.

Honestly, we're talking about replacing MCS, moving to the long
gestating LibFrap, we have no full time developers, and if Jaspers
presence on this list is any indicator at least one of the major devs
has less and less time for Xfce development. Hell, I'd be willing to
guess we all have.

Mousepad, Terminal, and Thunar were all initially discussed as out of
core development projects and have always jumped on using whatever Gtk
and other libraries have offered, and will likely continue to, even
though they are now considered "core".

Gtk has shortened it's release cycle since Xfce 4.2, and significant
chunks of deprecated functionality come from our attempt to wrap or
backport later Gtk functionality, which is tedious to maintain.

Xfce devs tend to run latest Gtk stable anyway, or close to it. I
can't count the number of times one of us has accidentally introduced
a dependency on a higher version of Gtk and not noticed - sometimes
not till very late in the game since our users tend to be up to date
as well.

Those distros which don't ship a Gtk 2.10 package likely won't ship an
Xfce 4.6 package either, so our users on those platforms will be
building from source anyway, and having to upgrade fundamental
packages like DBUS and HAL as it stands while they're at it - why not
Gtk+ the most fundamental Xfce dependency?

Due to the structure and manpower of Xfce we have no overarching goals
for 4.6, rather a series of per project goals and Olivier as the final
arbiter of what goes in and what goes out. That tends to slow the
release cycle. Not only that we're starting this dev cycle the same
time we started the last two, with the same questions and the same
amount of manpower, more or less.

Xfce has a history of it's major releases being featureful and highly
stable. Any shortening of the 4.5 development to less than a year is,
in my opinion, just asking to suck away a lot of our time in the fall
fixing bugs all at once that we usually manage to fix piecemeal over
our nice peaceful unstable run, an additional burden on our small
team.

In case you haven't noticed, this is a rather strong appeal to make
Gtk+ 2.10.x the assumed minimum Gtk version for Xfce 4.6. Perhaps it's
a bit fatalist, but we haven't seen the drastic shift in manpower or
project vision that makes me reasonably think that 4.5/4.6 development
will go any different than 4.3/4.4. And considering the quality of
4.4, I'm happy with that, but we should learn from history.

If we decide on 2.8, I'll wrap everything in ifdefs, but I honestly do
not see a win for us at all. I'd be willing to be 20 American dollars
that Gtk+ 2.16 will be out by the time Xfce 4.6 is, and that a
majority of our users will be at 2.12.  We should use that to our
advantage.

That's my wad of cash.

>
>   - Jannis
>
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-- 
Erik

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