[maemo-developers] Backwards compatibility broken PR1.1 SDK

[From: Graham Cobb]

On Wednesday 20 January 2010 10:34:53 Igor Stoppa wrote:
> Hi,
>
> ext Graham Cobb wrote:
> > We have to live with that and try to come up with a solution that is best
> > for the users.  In my view, that means having as many apps as possible
> > available to people who are still running the initial release.
>
> That would not be very wise: you are assuming that all the units will be
> manufactured with the same SW onboard.

No I'm not -- I am well aware that Nokia will be updating the factory 
firmware.  But that is no problem: any application which supports the initial 
release will also continue to work on all the later releases, at least until 
Harmattan.

It is still my view that, if at all possible, applications should install on 
the initial release.  Otherwise we lose those applications for a large part 
of our user base (those who got a device with an earlier version of the 
software and have not upgraded).

> For example, what about actively supporting (at any point in time) the
> current and previous official build?
> That should cover the vast majority of the users and ensure that you do
> not deal constantly with bugs that have already been fixed.

I don't object to applications rejecting bugs (and even a Maemo policy which 
says that bug reports will be rejected) if the device is not running the 
latest or previous firmware.  But that is different from building them such 
that they will not install on previous versions.

This really isn't hard!  For the vast majority of applications there is no 
reason at all why they cannot be built against the first software release and 
install on all later releases, taking advantage of the bug fixes made since.  
I have been doing that for GPE since the first Maemo release.  That is what 
the autobuilder should be doing by default -- no need to make life hard for 
users **by default**!

All we need is an exception process for the very, very few apps which want to 
make use of the few new features introduced in the new releases.  That is why 
I proposed the alternate builder queues which will cause the builder to use a 
later SDK.  Any application built using one of the alternate queues will not 
install on all versions of Fremantle so using it is discouraged unless it is 
necessary.

Graham