Issue with DocBook XML copy removal

[Michael Pyne]

On Monday, May 10, 2010 12:18:21 Albert Astals Cid wrote:
> Hi, as part of the project that aims to remove DocBook XML copies from
> kdelibs, we have found a small issue with backwards compatibility.
> 
> As explained in old mails, the aim of the project is removing DocBook XML
> V4.1, V4.1.2 and V4.2 copies in kdelibs and use an externally provided
> V4.2.
> 
> This means that when compiling against KDE 4.5, any kde docbook using
> V4.1.2 docbooks will fail to be generated.
> 
> Most of the documentation on the KDE repo was already using V4.2 so i
> understand external programs will mostly copy and paste the correct header
> from our documentation and will be fine after the change. For those using
> older versions on 99.99% of the cases the fix is simply updating the header
> of the docbook (one liner), but we wonder if this change can be considered
> a "source compatibility" problem, in my opinion we only promised source
> compatibility on the "code" level, but others might disagree, hence this
> mail.

Well documentation is not required to actually allow programs to compile and 
run so in that regard even if it causes compile failures, the user can still 
use the CMake flag to skip building the docs.

This shouldn't affect distros or packagers, so that leaves end users trying to 
build old software from what I can figure. But this change would help 
developers documenting their new software since they can rely on the 
"standard" DocBook base. So I'd say we should go for it, but make it clear in 
the release notes.

Regards,
 - Michael Pyne
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