[RFC][PATCH] remove gdk-pixbuf and use libpng

[Joakim Sindholt]

On Wed, 2011-02-09 at 13:06 +0200, Tiago Vignatti wrote:
> Signed-off-by: Tiago Vignatti <tiago.vignatti at nokia.com>
> ---
> 
> This patch is a WIP to remove gdk-pixbuf dependency and use libpng instead.
> It is unfinished though and only compositor with simple-client works.
> 
> In principle, gdk-pixbuf is a bit bloated and brings a big package dependency
> in some platforms which makes harder to try Wayland. On the other hand,
> gdk-pixbuf has several modules to convert a bunch of image formats in pixel
> data, whereas libpng has only one, obviously. This is the drawback on using
> lipng. However, I guess compositor and clients could live happy with libpng
> only given they are made for demonstration purposes (well, at least at the
> moment).
> 
> I won't be playing with this on the next days, but I'd love to help anyone
> with this work in the case I got a positive feedback here. Then, the short
> TODO on my mind:
> 
> - fix command line parsing in compositor.c
> - apply analogue changes for other clients and screenshooter
> 
> 
> Thanks!
> 
>       Tiago

I think it would make more sense to write a generalized backend-driven
system so distributions that don't wish to ship gdk-pixbuf, or libpng
for that matter, can simply write a backend suitable for their needs.