Re: Proposing module: PyGTK

[Mark McLoughlin <markmc redhat com>]

On Mon, 2004-11-01 at 22:18, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> <quote who="Murray Cumming">
> 
> > The Bindings release exists so that applications can depend on the APIs
> > that it offers.
> 
> Definitely agree here, particularly wrt API/ABI commitment.
> 
> > I think that we gain nothing if we move a module from Bindings to Desktop,
> > but I think that it would undermine the Bindings release set. I am very
> > much against it.
> 
> I somewhat disagree here. Should we let stuff in the Desktop suite depend on
> anything in the Bindings suite, in the same way as the Platform suite? Then
> we'd have to support stuff written in fifteen different languages, if the
> Bindings suite is a rousing success.
> 
> We should have considered this issue more closely when setting up the
> expectations of the Bindings suite. I think it's best bet is to represent a
> selection of reliable, API/ABI compat bindings for third-party application
> developers to choose from. So that's unrelated to our internal rules for
> modules in each suite.
> 
> So should we list pygtk in Desktop and Bindings? Kinda ugly, but doable.
> Should we just document the fact that pygtk is welcome as a non-optional
> dependency (as some modules already optionally depend on it) in the Desktop
> suite, and leave it at that? Should we embrace the idea that the Bindings
> suite is equivalent to the Platform, and we should accept dependencies on
> any of these bindings in the Desktop release?

	Well, I think there's two sides to this:

  1) The expectations we want to set to modules in the Desktop release -
     i.e. we want those modules to feel free to depend on pygtk, but not
     any of the other members of the bindings release.

  2) The expectations we want to set to external developers - i.e. do we
     want the python binding to be "just another GNOME binding" or do
     we want it to enjoy a higher status above the other bindings?

	I think it all hinges on how we feel about (2) - if the python binding
should be an officially way to write against the GNOME platform and
"more blessed" than the other bindings, then I think it belongs in the
Platform release set. If not, it should stay in the Bindings release
set.

	(1) doesn't matter all that much - if, from (2), it should stay in the
Bindings release set, then we can fudge it just like you say ... i.e.
that Desktop modules can depend on pygtk but not the other bindings or
that pygtk be listed in the Desktop release set too.

Cheers,
Mark.