xlib + xcms

[mcnichol at austin.ibm.com]

> Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 16:37:01 +0100
> From: Enrico Weigelt <weigelt at metux.de>
> 
> ACK. Xlib itself should only contain things in the official X.org spec.
> Evrything else belongs into separate libs.
> 

That is a good theory/practice to follow...

However, at least from my reading of this thread one of the cardinal rules
is being forgotten about.  That is:

THOU SHALT NOT BREAK BINARY COMPATIBILITY!!!!



Now it's true that different OSes may have different quirks when it comes
to maintaining binary compatibility.  But I can guarantee that removing
public APIs from an existing library is going to cause breakage all over
the place.

Note that X-Windows is now over 20 years old.  Some of the software written
in the early years of X is still in use today.  I know we have one or two
applications that were last compiled on X11R3 that are still widely used.
In many cases the source code for these lagacy applications is no longer
available.  The simple fact is that these programs must continue to work.

Dan