Merged proto package

[Keith Packard]

On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 06:21:01 -0700, Dan Nicholson <dbn.lists at gmail.com> wrote:

> Keith, I just noticed that you moved the xproto.pc file from x11proto
> to the top-level. I think this is a bad idea unless you change all the
> libraries to not check for xproto (which they do now). This will cause
> people that don't know better to rebuild Xlib and snowball out to all
> their packages when the xproto version gets bumped (which will be
> often in a merged scenario).

The union of these files defines the X protocol as we use it today,
which kinda suggests that we call it the 'xproto' package, essentially
merging the required extension definitions into the core protocol. I'm
not that adamant though; if other people have opinions, I'd love to hear
them. In particular, this isn't the 'xorg-proto' package, as it doesn't
relate to the xorg implementation of these specifications; it is the
canonical specification itself.

I don't see the merged package getting released all that often
though. Let me explain my thinking.

The xproto package contains protocol specifications and definitions.  It
doesn't actually contain any working code. Until the matching X server
and libraries are released, we don't know if the proposed specification
can actually be implemented. Therefore, a basic precondition for
releasing the xproto package is a working server and library
implementation of the changes. And this means that the X server and
associated libraries should be ready for release as well.

I see the xproto package getting released about the same time as the
matching library and X server changes; these days, that's about once
every six months. There might be minor xproto releases between times,
but only for bug fixes which won't affect what protocol revisions each
of the underlying files define.

-- 
keith.packard at intel.com
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