Issue with DocBook XML copy removal

[Alexander Neundorf]

On Tuesday 11 May 2010, Michael Pyne wrote:
> 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.

Probably also here:
http://techbase.kde.org/Development/CMake#Changelog_for_KDE.27s_CMake_buildsystem
in the changelog page for KDE 4.5 (which doesn't exist yet).

Alex