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Hi all, |
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|
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I want to raise the issue of supporting old versions of KDE. |
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|
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I am about to add kde-2.2.2 ebuilds to cvs (2.2.2 is to be released later |
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today) and new revisions of the kde-2.2.1 ebuilds. Both sets will support |
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multi-kdelibs, which allows various combinations of kdelibs packages to be |
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used together. Unfortunately, this support isn't backward-compatible. |
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|
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The question is, should I continue to support older KDEs? How old, and how |
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much support? |
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|
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Support for the new multi-kdelibs and multi-qt schemes, and for the upcoming |
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new dependency specification format (portage 2?), can only be really added |
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one way - by making inheriting (eclassing) ebuilds for all versions of kde to |
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be supported. Right now only 2.2.1 (and the upcoming 2.2.2) have inheriting |
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ebuilds. |
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|
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I will probably support only the latest versions (e.g. 2.2.1, 2.2.2). 2.2.0 |
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can be added for completeness, since it's fairly recent and was the latest |
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KDE in the early days of rc6. Older, already installed versions will still |
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work - insofar they are currently working - but any small update, possibly |
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even the emerging of some kde apps, will demand a complete upgrade to the |
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latest qt/kde. |
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|
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I could also add support for all kde versions (incl. 2.1.x). This will |
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require a lot more work and so I will only do it if enough people respond |
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here saying they have these older versions. In which case, they'll also have |
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to give their reasons for not upgrading to kde-2.2.x. |
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|
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Doing this would be tedious and would require a lot more testing. I'm |
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mentioning it in the interests of fairness to the many people who (may) still |
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use older KDEs. So, speak up now or be silent forever. |
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If I did add such support, a user would still have to remerge all his current |
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kde. So as far as I can see there are no reasons not to upgrade. |
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After I test & commit the multi-kdelibs ebuilds (including some eclass |
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updates and other misc stuff), I'm considering deleting older KDE ebuilds |
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from cvs. The 2.2_beta ebuilds obviously have to go, and I'm also considering |
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deleting all but the latest 2.1.x and 2.2.x ebuilds - that is, all but |
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2.1.1/2 and 2.2.2. Again, tell me if you know of any reasons not to do so. |
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|
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Once everything is settled, tested and committed, I'll post an appropriate |
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message on gentoo-announce. |
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|
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-- |
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|
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Dan Armak |
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Gentoo Linux Developer, Desktop Team |
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Matan, Israel |