[Kde-accessibility] Re: glib dependancy in KDE3.x

[Olaf Jan Schmidt]

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[Philippe Fremy]
> I remind or inform you that glib will also be a dependancy for the
> accessibility module, planned to be implemented as a plugin. So we have
> actually  three projects which are going to depend on glib.

Just to put things right: The KDE Accessibility Project is NOT planning to 
introduce a glib dependency into KDE.

We are discussing about a bridge between AT-SPI and Qt that will depend on 
both ATK and Qt. This bridge will have no dependency of glib, only of 
ATK, and it need not be part of KDE itself - especially since it is 
planned as a ATK-Qt bridge rather than a KDE glib dependency.

The second thing I wish you to keep in mind is that we have not started to 
do any actual coding. We are still in the phase of discussing possible 
strategies, and we are currently concentrating on implementing smaller 
projects.
Apart from the bridge, AT-SPI support requires heavy changes to both Qt 
and KDE that will be discussed on kde-core-devel when the time is right.

We will not start coding the Qt-ATK bridge before the Qt and KDE side 
works at least basically, and we will not start changing KDE before we 
have come to an agreement with TrollTech and kde-core-devel, and we can 
only start those discussions when we have have a clearer picture how 
AT-SPI, ATK and QAccessible can exactly work together, which is not easy 
since all of them are very poorly documented.

It does not make much sense to decide KDE core issues upon a planned 
accessibility interoperability bridge that is not even been coded yet.

> I think that for the projects where it makes sense, glib dependency
> should be accepted. It is a pity to waste developer's time developing
> something that exists elsewhere in better and maintained quality.
>
> What are the projects for which it makes sense ? Sofar, we've seen two
> cases:
> - a KDE project wants to talk to a gnome project. This is the case for
> arts/gstreamer and kde-accessibility/at-spi.
> - a project is developed within the scope of KDE but can not depend on
> Qt because the scope of the project is wider than KDE. That's the case
> for wv2.
>
> In both cases, the glib dependency makes sense.

I agree that a glib dependency would make some interoperability issues 
easier, but at least for the KDEAP there is currently no need for a 
direct dependency. Everything can be solved via bridges.

Accessibility interoperability will require more then just basic KDE and 
Gnome installations. Special software like the AT-SPI registry or certain 
device drivers are also needed, so asking for the installation of a 
bridge is exceptable for people who need AT-SPI.

If kde-core-devel decides that using glib is OK, then we might change our 
plans, but we currently are only talking about an ATK dependency for the 
bridge. And, to say it again, we have not started coding anything, so 
everything I say is just ideas and possibilities, and might be changed 
later in favour of a better solution.

Olaf.

- -- 
Olaf Jan Schmidt, KDE Accessibility Project
KDEAP co-maintainer, maintainer of http://accessibility.kde.org

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