Backwards compatibility of kdelibs/experimental

[Andreas Pakulat]

On 08.12.09 18:24:18, Sune Vuorela wrote:
> On 2009-12-08, Thiago Macieira <thiago at kde.org> wrote:
> > --nextPart2224014.W10Z83oVGD
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> > Em Ter=E7a-feira 08 Dezembro 2009, =E0s 16:08:43, Lubos Lunak escreveu:
> >>  Hello,
> >>=20
> >>  I have a question of about backwards compatibility of KNotificationItem
> >>  and kdelibs/experimental in general and I don't mean just API. API is
> >>  simple, there is no guarantee, but I don't see anything about the rest in
> >> http://techbase.kde.org/Policies/New_KDE_Library_API_Policy .
> >>=20
> >>  For example, KNotificationItem from 4.3.x does not work in 4.4.x workspa=
> > ce
> >> (the D-Bus name has changed). Fortunately, there is still the old systray
> >> mechanism, so there's no big loss of functionality as long as the old
> >>  library is still around. And yes, there are apps outside of KDE SC that
> >>  use it.
> >>=20
> >>  Is it acceptable that something like that no longer works, and regardless
> >>  of the answer, could it be added to the wiki page?
> >
> > Binary/behaviour compatibility includes D-Bus interfaces. So renaming an=20
> > interface, removing methods, etc. is not BC.
> >
> > Anyway, this was an experimental lib. The D-Bus protocol should also be=20
> > considered experimental there.
> 
> I don't think that actually breaking things should be allowed. In this
> case, things doesn't really break as there is the fallback to the old
> systray mechanism.
> 
> But if KDE4.3 apps didn't have access to the KDESC4.4 systray in any
> way, I would consider it wrong, and something I think we should document
> shouldn't be done.

Doesn't that completely defeat the purpose of this
experimental-lib-stuff? As far as I understood the whole point is to
have this available for apps to use, but to give no warranty whatsoever
about how it works in the next release (which API, which behaviour etc)

Andreas

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