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Hi, |
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On Wed, 12 Feb 2014 00:39:14 +0200 Alex Alexander wrote: |
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>Hello fellow developers, |
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> |
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>In the first meeting of the new QA team, we discussed the state of the |
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>gtk{,2,3} USE flags in the main tree. [0] |
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> |
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>In its current state, USE="gtk" means gtk2. The Gnome team is trying |
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>to change this into "the most recent gtk version" (it is a work in |
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>progress). |
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> |
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>Unfortunately, the concurrent nature of gtk2/gtk3 has resulted in |
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>packages that may support either or both the toolkits. To handle this, |
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>a few developers have introduced the "gtk3" useflag, that prefers gtk3 |
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>over gtk2 when both toolkit versions are supported. At this point, the |
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>Gnome team highly recommends prefering gtk3 if possible, skipping the |
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>useflag altogether. [1] |
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> |
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>Some developers choose to follow the Gnome team's highlights, while |
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>others choose to go their own way. The QA team would like to establish |
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>a guideline that solves this problem in the best way possible. |
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> |
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>During our discussion, it was pointed out that keeping a generic |
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>USE="gtk" is sub-optimal. The non-straightforward nature of new |
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>toolkit versions makes transitioning from one to the other a slow, |
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>tedius process and we think that a non-versioned USE flag makes things |
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>even worse. |
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> |
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>A few of our members recommended a move away from the unversioned |
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>USE="gtk" to versioned-only USE flags. Qt managed to do this quite |
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>successfully when they transitioned from the unversioned |
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>USE="qt" (that actually meant qt3) to USE="qt4". The benefits can be |
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>seen now that qt5 is around the corner. USE="qt5" is straightforward, |
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>does not mess with qt4 packages and was introduced to the tree without |
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>messing with current packages too much - other than adding a new use |
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>flag where appropriate. There is also no need for USE="qt" anymore. |
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> |
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>To achieve this, version 3 of gtk should always be enabled by |
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>USE="gtk3". At some point in the future, when gtk2 consumers reach |
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>zero, we will retire "gtk" for good. Then, if some day gtk4 comes |
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>around, we will be able to introduce support for it in the tree by |
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>simply adding USE="gtk4", without having to re-structure half the tree. |
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> |
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>We are reaching out to the developer community to hear your thoughts |
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>and ideas on the matter. We would like to reach a decision that could |
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>possibly affect and direct the state of whole tree. This decision |
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>could then be turned into a policy, improving Gentoo's consistency |
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>across the tree. |
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> |
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>Cheers |
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> |
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>[0] |
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>https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Quality_Assurance/Meeting_Summaries#Summary_of_Wednesday_January_29.2C_2014 |
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>[1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Gnome_Team_Policies#gtk3 |
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This is a really good idea and I am all in favor of it. |
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gtk+:3 still isn't adopted widely and there are still not many good |
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looking skins available for it. (sorry but I don't want to have all gtk+ |
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apps I am using looking totally ugly again) |
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I doubt gtk+:2 will be deprecated that soon as some of our devs try |
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to imply. |
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|
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|
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-- |
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Lars Wendler |
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Gentoo package maintainer |
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GPG: 4DD8 C47C CDFA 5295 E1A6 3FC8 F696 74AB 981C A6FC |
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