[maemo-developers] QT Packages, Repositories and PR1.2

[From: Attila Csipa]

On Friday 21 May 2010 01:42:43 you wrote:
> 1.	As today what a developer needs to do to get an application that
> uses qt to the end user? Is there a way to tell the autobuilder to compile
> against the 4.5 qt and make the package only depend on it?

In theory you just depend on the proper version of libqt4-dev, but it's tricky 
as you might indirectly reference libs that are also newer in the SDK/new PR 
so end up with a 4.6 dependency (or broken build), see below...

> 2.	What is the point of the (not so few) qt applications on the
> repository that were compiled against the qt4-core (4.6)? Unless pr1.2 will
> have a qt that is binary compatible to the libs on the autobuilder right
> now these packages will be completely useless, right? I thought the point
> of committing packages using qt4-core (4.6) now was to have them ready for
> day one when pr 1.2. gets out.

Most of the applications got compiled for Qt4.6 'by accident', in terms that 
they do not really depend on or need 4.6 (nor did the original author WANT 
that specific version), but with current SDK setup they end up being linked 
against 4.6 anyway. This is why in my previous post I said this is not 
strictly a PR1.1 problem, a similar situation might arise with other packages 
if not managed correctly.

> 3.	The qt applications not using qt4-maemo5 are "moved" to testing. How
> are they being tested right now? They can't be tested on the pr1.1, because
> they are compiled against qt 4.6. Are they not being tested at all
> (everything is at halt); or they are being tested by people that have "pre
> release" pr1.2; or are they being tested using scratchbox environment?

AFAIK it's halted. Considering PR1.2 uses a separate repo, it makes no sense 
to promote them (yet) anyway. I would not consider prerelease 1.2 as a valid 
platform for community QA purposes.

> Thanks for taking the time to answer me. It has been very interesting and
> "illuminating"

Hate to be the bearer of bad news :( What we managed to agree for the PR1.2 
release is that development releases starting with PR1.2 will not be called 
libqt4-maemo5 as it's not that obvious that it's *really* just a version for 
testing, prone to breakage and not necessarily the exact one that will end up 
in the next PR. Future releases will sport the 'experimental' moniker (f.e. 
libqt4-experimental, python-qt4-experimental) so it's more clear that it (and 
stuff depending on it) are not meant to be promoted to end users. Not ideal, 
but hopefully will reduce confusion until a better solution is found that is 
acceptable for both Nokia and the community.


Regards,
Attila