Ar 17/04/2004 am 11:57, ysgrifennodd Steve Langasek: > I would also like to see some analysis of how GNOME 2.6 in unstable will > affect other non-GNOME packages. For instance, if GNOME 2.6 requires a > new version of GTK+ as well, will this require a transition for other > GTK+-using packages? If GTK+ 2.4 has the same soname as GTK+ 2.2 (the > package name in unstable suggests this is so), can GTK+ 2.4 safely be > allowed into testing, or will other GTK+-using packages have to wait for > all of GNOME 2.6 to be ready before they can be updated in testing? > (Note that if the answer is that it can't be safely allowed into testing > in advance of GNOME 2.6, the package name in experimental is almost > certainly wrong.)
In terms of applications, GTK+ 2.4 should be 100% backwards-compatible with GTK+ 2.2 and, for that matter, GTK+ 2.0. GNOME has promised that APIs and ABIs will not change during major verions (the major version in question being 2). If there is incompatibility, it is a bug. Input methods and GTK+ themes seem to behave slightly differently. API changes for minor versions for these seem to be permissible, I assume because these APIs are more specialised. I don't know how much of a problem this is. For example, the uim-gtk2.0 package would, at the very least, have to install to /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.4.0 rather than /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.2.0. Some themes have been adapted to work with GTK+ 2.4 already. I don't know how much work this was, whether the changes were compatible with GTK+ 2.2, or how many themes are affected. Hopefully, others can provide details here. -- Dafydd
