libsdl2 repository

[Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo]

2012/5/21 Felix Geyer <debfx-pkg at fobos.de>:
> On 21.05.2012 17:01, Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo wrote:
>> Other than that, what's your idea about including some of these
>> versions in unstable instead of experimental?
>
> I think that's a bad idea unless upstream already guarantees
> binary compatibility with the upcoming stable release.
> [...]
>
> What's the problem with installing it from experimental?
> I'm not sure if it's even a good idea to port applications when
> upstream hasn't even released a beta version.

It's not labelled as beta or anything, but it is available from
http://www.libsdl.org/hg.php

These SDL guys really confuse me.  I saw bugs being closed in 2008 on
the basis that it was fixed in the 1.3 (now 2.0) branch, and they 4
years later there's no firm release yet.  With the move 1.3->2.0
(around Jan 20) and lots of VCS activity at the time, I thought that
the final release was somewhat imminent (at least, in time for the
freeze), but it's not happening and there's no sign whatsoever.  I
asked upstream about it around new year, no replies.

However, I don't think that binary compatibility is very important at
this point, and no packages in Debian should start depending on it
carelessly -- it would be only for developers to test their
applications and jump ship when ready.  I bet that there are dozens
(if not thousands) of more ABI (even API) unstable libraries than SDL
in Debian right now.

There're people trying to use it already, anyway:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=669363
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=libsdl-1.3


Cheers.