Re: Neat gtk/gdk-imlib pain
Dave Swegen <dave@recursive.prestel.co.uk> writes:
> I've followed this thread with interest, as I decided to try out gnome at
> the weekend, and ended up in a world of pain, as the saying goes. So I'd
> like to make a suggestion on a stopgap measure until a more permanent (and
> generic) solution is found.
> Why not make sure all gnome libs and apps are reasonably compatible with
> each other (all apps being compiled against the same libs), before being
> put into the main archive? As it stands now you have some libs which are
> updated more often than the apps (or other linked libs) can be recompiled
> against the new versions. Perhaps setting up an announce list for gnome
> packagers to inform them that they should recompile their packages against
> the new version.
That's not a bad idea. Although I don't think the problem is that the
users of the imlib/gnome libraries are unaware of the new libraries -
rather, they don't have enough time to be constantly
updating/recompiling their packages.
Part of the reason we call the devel branch of Debian 'unstable' is
because we do things like upload libraries that may break other
things. It would be nicer if we didn't have to -- but that's life.
There is a limit to the amount of 'pain' the developers are willing to
endure, of course.
My primary concern is that any breakage that happens in unstable does
not 'leak out' and affect people that are using the stable release of
Debian.
That could happen if programs like wmakerconf in unstable eventually
get released into stable without being recompiled against the newer
libs.
When wmakerconf was built, it didn't know it would conflict with the
future imlib. And the imlib maintainer doesn't want to declare a
versioned conflicts against every package using it that also uses a
library that is incompatible with a library it also uses (with some
libraries, it could potentially involve hundreds of packages).
> To try and keep debian up with the rapid development of gnome and other
> such fast-evolving projects is asking for trouble. IMHO it is better to
> skip a few versions and maintain (reasonable) stability and comaptability.
Which basically implies that we shouldn't even touch it until 1.0 is
released. Until then, the upstream maintainers are making no promises
with regards to stability and compatibility/upgradeability.
However, I don't think that dropping Gnome would be too popular -
people want to play with it even though it is unstable.
Cheers,
- Jim
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