From: Hubert Figuiere (hfiguiere@teaser.fr)
Date: Tue Nov 04 2003 - 04:00:38 EST
On lun, 2003-11-03 at 21:52, Kenneth J. Davis wrote:
> There are two issues here,
> Development - plugins should stay outside of ./abi or they should
> be added back to the main binary.
No.
Having them outside of the binary provide a better modularity.
> - a plugin should NOT rely on the internals of abiword
> in any way, but on a cleanly exposed API that we can
> at least try to make as a stable ABI between minor
> releases (e.g. 2.0.1 plugins in theory should work
> with a 2.0.2 release, but not necessary with a
> 2.2.0 release).
> Placing the plugins within the ./abi tree will only
> further encourage the use of internals and not a clean
> separation.
Yes and no. To do the above correctly it would require to add an ORB to
link AbiWord object model with plugins, transparently and weakly. That
would allow plugins that don't match with the version.
> - plugins have extra dependencies, adding plugins to the
> default build will require the build process to guess
> if these are available and conditionaly compile only
> plugins whose dependencies are found or cause a build
> failure; presently using diving make that requires
> manaully editing the Makefiles before building
Mmmm. Perhaps can we work around that. 2 solutions:
1/ move to configure for all platforms
2/ make a configuration system à la Linux kernel.
> - not everyone wants or needs all the plugins, so having
> them in abi wastefully adds to its download size and
> cvs update time
cvs update are for developpers. Source tarball are not for masses. They
can both cope with a more complete set. For the real end-user, the
masses, we can still arrange with packagers for optionnal stuff.
> - As a modem user, I like the split into smaller packages,
> but for higher bandwidth internet access, yes a single
> package with all our plugins is simpler.
That does not prevent providing a separate installer.
Hub
-- "<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is." -- http://www.bash.org/?5273
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