[gst-devel] Required GLib version policy

[Edward Hervey]

On Fri, 2009-02-20 at 18:50 +0100, Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
> > Put differently (in good advocatus diaboli spirit): why should we/I care
> > about something that inconveniences you / a small fraction of our end
> > user base, but doesn't really pose any problems for you that can't be
> > overcome? When it could make my/our life easier?
> 
> It's a chicken and egg problem.  Why is that user base small ? Because
> you make it hard for them to be big.

  That's pushing it a bit. (cross-)compiling glib is *really* trivial.
If that is one of the things stopping those user base getting bigger...
they're in for a ride.

  Let's put it another way. Distro X Enterprise (with their 3 aeons
support) doesn't update glib.
  Does it update anything else apart from critical security releases ?
No.
  Will DistroCompany update gstreamer (if it's available for starters) ?
No.
  Will it therefore update glib ? Maybe not... but that's not what's
stopping them from updating GStreamer.
  I think you're looking at the problem the other way round.

  We've been doing tarballs/rpms/debs for some people who were using
so-called enterprise distros to demo them gstreamer apps and it took...
what... a few hours maybe ? That's GStreamer + dependencies + plugins +
application.
  Did it require a rocket scientist ? No.
  Did it screw up their system ? No, because they were installed in a
non-/usr prefix, therefore our software was the only one using that.

> 
> You're assuming the problems can't be overcome, and it's about as valid
> as them assuming your compatibility problems can't be overcome.
> 
> 
> Thread fixes are a strawman - we've had thread problems with pretty much
> every GLib series we've used, so you're going to be able to pull that
> one out basically forever :)

  Is that a reason to stop us going forward ? Isn't it time we get them
fixed ? What if it gets fixes for a small-user-base
architecture/system ? Shouldn't they be able to use GStreamer too ?

  I don't want gstreamer to fix those issues just for GStreamer, I want
all glib-based libraries/applications to benefit from it (including
yours !).

  Edward