Time for a break...

[Ethan Blanton]

Kevin M Stange spake unto us the following wisdom:
> Ethan Blanton wrote:
> > The argument yesterday was about the removal of win32 support in
> > Pidgin.  I fully support it, and I think we should do it.  I don't
> > think it buys us anything as a project, and it is certainly a support
> > nightmare.  With the complete core/ui split in 2.0.0, there is no
> > reason that some enterprising party cannot come along and develop a
> > native win32 client.
> 
> I recognize that removing win32 would certainly encourage new
> development of a native client, but I don't think it's a good idea to
> drop our builds before this happens, as the outrage it will generate
> will be terrible.  Not to mention that someone is going to still need to
> keep libpurple compatible with Win32 (perhaps the patchset could be kept
> out of tree, but I don't think it should).  There isn't an overabundance
> of hackiness in the Pidgin UI for Win32, in my opinion, and I don't
> think its maintainability is unreasonable.  It turns out GTK+ is our
> biggest problem on Win32, and eventually getting Win32 away from GTK+ is
> wise, but at the same time, Tor Lillvqist is working on Evolution for
> Windows (for Novell?), and GTK+ has been steadily improving on the
> platform as a result.

I firmly believe that we should *not* drop win32 support in libpurple,
nor should any patches for that compatability be out-of-tree.  In
fact, if someone came to us with a patch for AmigaOS or MacOS 7 or
whatever, and it took only a few dozen #ifdefs to get running, I'd be
all for it.  (Of course, it might bitrot going forward, and be
removed, but still...)  Libpurple is intended to be a cross-platform,
and all reasonable effort should be made to support this.

> I like Pidgin's developer team, and I agree and disagree with various
> members all the time.  I don't want to see people leaving in disgust or
> anger.  I don't know how to solve the flaring of tempers between members
> of opposing viewpoints, but I hope there's a solution that doesn't force
> anyone to have to go away.

I, also, like and respect every member of the Pidgin developer team.
Some I disagree with more than others, and some I agree with more than
others, but that is to be expected.  (For what it's worth, I like and
respect very few people in the intarwebz.)  (Ironically, the
participants in this thread so far I generally consider people I agree
with more often than not.)

Ethan

-- 
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy
for evils].  They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes.
		-- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://pidgin.im/pipermail/devel/attachments/20070521/caeba1db/attachment.sig>