[Xcb] Roadmap for next release of XCB (proto and libxcb)

[Christian Linhart]

Hi,

Now that Michael Stapelberg wrote that the next release seems to be still a while away based on discussions with me, I'd like to describe the state for the next release, so you get an idea what "still a while away" means.

The commits that I have pushed yesterday fix some of the issues that need to be fixed before we can make a release, such as: * the bug with align-offsets,
* and the lengthless lists implementation. This avoids future ABI/API issues where lengthless lists are used.

But there is still something to do:
* general QA work, such as testing and ABI/API compatibility reviews.

* I will soon post a proposal about how to solve ABI/API issues which arise from bugfixes in the xml-protocol definition.
   (It's already partially written. It is based on the brainstorming we had a while ago about this issue.)
  Then the proposal (or other possible solutions) can be discussed, so to get a design decision on how to solve these issues.
  We'll need to solve such issues for the next release as I have learned a while ago.

* based on the ABI/API issues proposal and discussion:
   implementing a solution for the ABI/API issues with XInput.
   XInput is not built by default, but it is shipped with some Linux distros.
   So we have to ensure at least ABI compatibility.
   I am currently making a list of all ABI/API issues with Xinput.

* maybe implementing a solution for ABI/API issues with other extensions, when such issues are detected by QA work.

* checking Patchwork for patches that have been forgotten but should be included.

If you want to work on any of these points, please post this here, so we can coordinate who does what. (and avoid duplicate work).

I am working on the following stuff now:
* writing a proposal for handling ABI/API issues that arise from bugfixes in the XML protocol descriptions.
   I plan to post this before next Monday.

* making a list of ABI/API issues with the XInput extension.

Cheers,

Chris