Re: Stable, long term support releases for gtk+

[Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi gmail com>]

hi all;

a couple of points have been raised on IRC, so let me try to summarize
them here:

  • "LTS" is probably the wrong name, given that it has "support" into
it; I merely used a known name, but what this whole initiative is
about is to provide releases coming from upstream (the GTK+ project)
that can be used downstream (the GTK+ distributors) to avoid
distro-specific silos, or different bug fixes reaching downstream
distributors at different times;
  • related to the point above, the scope of this initiative is to
integrate (well-tested) patches, either coming from downstream, or
identified from upstream: no new features, no sweeping changes, no
refactorings, and more importantly *no* *regressions*; I am currently
drafting a list of guidelines for the process of integrating patches,
to avoid unnecessary confusion, and to allow somebody else to pick a
branch up in the future, in case this initiative is successful.

there are some discrepancies in the versions chosen by different
downstreams, at the moment; plus, GTK+ 3.4 has its own quirks that
have been resolved in GTK+ 3.6, as well as in the current 3.7 cycle. I
think the current situation is inevitable, at least for this cycle.
even if we selected the next stable version, 3.8, to be the one with
long term updates (which would put some pressure on the things that
still need to land with just a month or so before API freeze), it
wouldn't do anybody good at least until the next LTS cycle in a couple
of years, and this whole thing would be a pointless exercise in
futility.

given the installed base that depends on GTK+ 3.4 and GLib 2.32
*already*, the sanest option is to do a run with those, and see how
this whole thing works out. for the next long term support cycle of
our various downstreams we'll probably be able to select a version
beforehand, and get everybody on the same page from the start.

ciao,
 Emmanuele (who is not subscribed to distributor-list, so would
appreciate to keep gtk-devel-list in the loop when replying).