About ProgressReport and msn-pecan

[John Bailey]

Dossy Shiobara wrote:
> On 2008.06.12, Gary Kramlich <grim at reaperworld.com> wrote:
>> The problem is that pidgin/purple are compatible all the way back to 
>> glib 2.0.0 and iirc we currently supply packages for some distros that 
>> only support 2.0.0 (stu, correct me if I'm wrong here).
> 
> This sounds like a really lame explanation.  Pidgin developers have no
> qualms about making UI changes, but insist on supporting some severely
> outdated dependency like GLib 2.0.0?

We don't all insist on supporting the "stone age," so to speak, but even those
of us that support forgetting about the older library versions realize that it
will break things for some people.  We have debated the compatibility thing on
more than one occasion, and we did finally come to a consensus to require glib
2.4.0 (I think, but it might have been 2.6.0) for 3.0.0.

The problem here is that dropping support for older stuff too soon is a bad
idea, and it's particularly difficult to know when "too soon" actually is.  For
example, I know a good number of production environments still use RedHat Linux
9.0, even though RedHat no longer supports it.  I have seen first-hand a number
of production environments that still use Windows 98, although it's been
abandoned by Microsoft for years.  Windows NT 4.0 still has popularity even
though it's been abandoned for years too.  (Note that compatibility with Windows
98, ME, and NT4.0 is why we still link against GTK+ and glib 2.6.x--anything
newer doesn't work on these old operating systems).

And to directly address your comment about UI changes, note that we specifically
include the source for the GTK+ widgets we need that are not present in GTK+
2.0.0.  UI changes don't mean we have to abandon compatibility.

There *is* value in the logic of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

John

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