[Geany-Devel] Gtk2 vs Gtk3 (was. Re: A direction for Geany)

[Matthew Brush]

On 13-11-12 04:23 PM, Lex Trotman wrote:
> On 13 November 2013 10:53, Yosef Or Boczko <yoseforb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I not understand, you mean have some old version of
>> some distro isn't support GTK+ 3 and them always with
>> older version of all package - so why Geany need to be
>> the last in them distro?
>>
>
> Several reasons:
>
> 1. we don't have the resources to backport bug fixes to old versions, the
> only bug fix versions are the latest release of Geany.
>

Their sysadmins and distro vendors are supposed to take care of that 
aren't they? And anyway, most users wouldn't even be able to get a newer 
Geany installed from source on such a restricted system.

> 2. The users on old distros have the same use-cases as those on new
> distros, so they need the new features as much as anyone else.  Restricting
> the features available disenfranchises that group of users.
>

Older versions of Geany are still really good, and supported by their 
sysadmins and distro vendors, and it's not like major huge changes have 
happened since say 0.18 or something. What's more, it's not like it's 
actually Geany disenfranchising them, it's almost every single FOSS 
program that exists and even more so their IT people/sysadmins.

> 3. IIUC some of the Geany devs are in that situation, they clearly will not
> contribute to changes that they can't use.
>

I think Pavel said he's in this situation at work, but it's not like 
it's insurmountable, just more of a pain in the butt. Anyone else?

>
>>
>> Geany need to go forward, and older distro will keep
>> the old version of Geany same them keep the old
>> version of GTK+ 2 and not support GTK+ 3 yet.
>> Geany 1.24 and also Geany 0.21 it realy good software,
>> but we can't to bog becausw have some older distor.
>>
>
> Going forward is adding features that are useful to users, such as those
> suggestions being gathered in the "direction for Geany" thread.
>

It's painful writing new, pre-deprecated code against dead dependency 
version and not being able to use newer or improved APIs, though.

Cheers,
Matthew Brush