Compatibility problems with latest GTK+ applications

[John Layt]

On 9 May 2014 10:07, Boudewijn Rempt <boud at valdyas.org> wrote:
> Well, from what I see from Gimp and MyPaint, GTK3 is a big problem already.
> Gimp's development is glacial, of course, but they started their GTK3 port
> ages ago and still haven't merged it. MyPaint uses GTK3 now,
> which means it doesn't work on Windows anymore. Tablet support is completely
> broken. As for inkscape, it builds against GTK3, but isn't stable at all
> yet, and GTK2 remains preferred.

Ah yes, I'd forgotten most independent apps hadn't switched to Gtk3
yet, so won't be affected.

> And in the meantime, the GTK developers themselves have made pretty clear
> that GTK is for Gnome applets, not big cross-platform desktop applications:
> https://lwn.net/Articles/562856/.
>
> " GTK+ is primarily intended to be used on the GNOME desktop, using X11 as
> the backend."
>
> "GTK+ must focus on being the toolkit of the GNOME platform first, and
> tackle integration second."

Thanks for that link, it explains things very nicely.  Between their
lack of resources and the "GnomeOS" philosophy it will be interesting
to see how they respond to our approaches: in the article they clearly
state only a mass rebellion from Gtk's users would prompt them to
focus on cross-desktop/platform improvements.  I can't help but wonder
if the "implement it without a fallback" approach was partly intended
to force other WMs into supporting CSD their way?

Gnome is looking more and more like a walled garden these days, I
really don't understand how they think that's the best way to win new
users, but then I'm a pragmatist at heart.

John.