[sane-devel] Sane Release 1.1.0 ?

[m. allan noah]

On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 6:44 PM, Olaf Meeuwissen
<olaf.meeuwissen at avasys.jp> wrote:
> "m. allan noah" <kitno455 at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 8:42 AM, Julien BLACHE <jb at jblache.org> wrote:
>>> "m. allan noah" <kitno455 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Sanity is not the problem. The extreme need to make a release, coupled
>>>> with limited developer resources is the problem. Lets bump the version
>>>> everywhere to 2.
>>>
>>> Sanity and consistency of the API and its behaviour is the problem.
>>
>> we are making only modest changes to the API. It's behaviour is MORE
>> consistent with the current code than with your suggestion.
>>
>>> And I just can't believe you're pushing a release because "we need to
>>> release" and breaking things along the way.
>>
>> This is YOUR opinion. I think adding additional statuses to
>> SANE_Status is perfect, and protecting them with version bump follows
>> the standard to the letter.
>
> Julien is not the only one with that opinion.  I for one don't care
> for a release that was pushed out of the door for the benefit of a
> mere three backends that want/need the additions and in the mean time
> break things along the way for all frontends and external backends.
>
>  - what other reasons are there to release in such a rush?

a rush? it will be 9 months since last release if we were to start the
process today, and i never suggested that. i never even gave a
timeline.

>  - how do you support mixed (API/so)version installations?
>   - will a version 2 dll backend still load version 1 backends?

It should be able to, since old backends are forward compatible

>   - can version 2 frontends use version 1 backends?

unless the dll backend is going to change the version number, they
will have to, because of external backends.

>   - will version 1 frontends do the right thing with all version 2
>     backends?

no, that is why there is a soversion bump. we HAVE to have some
mechanism to make incompatible changes to the API.

>   - can everyone find the right match of versions?

most folks use the free backends we ship, and they will all be version
2. External backends that stay at v1 should still work. there is
nothing in the standard that precludes a frontend from supporting two
versions, or the dll backend could change the version as it passes by,
and still be accurate, since a v1 backend works just like a v2
backend, but does not use the new statuses or frame types.

I am open to suggestions on all these points. That is why I am pushing
the issue, to get some ideas, and some help.

allan
-- 
"The truth is an offense, but not a sin"