[Qgis-developer] Re: Release plans for QGIS 0.11.0 and on to 1.0

[Tim Sutton]

Hi

Let me try to ease your concerns a little:

For qgis 1.0 we will guarantee API compatibilty for the 1.x release
series. My estimate is that 1.x will be the stable version for the
next 1 to 2 years following its release, and there is the possibility
that we continue supporting 1.x even after 2.0 goes out.

For 2.0 we have a few options:
 - a completely new api with a qgis1support library to translate the
api into something compatible with qgis 1.
 - completely disregard 1.0 api and encourage plugin writers to port
their plugins to the new api, while deploying their plugins against
the 1.x stable releas until such time that thier pligins have been
ported.

I believe we need to allow the api to break compatibility with 1.x if
we are to advance qgis in any meaningful way. This approach is in
keeping with most major prjects I know about e.g. Qt, firefox etc. We
will try to keep the burden on plugin writers to a minimum but at the
same time we need to find a way to move forward with qgis while
keepiong plugin writers happy.

regards

Tim

On 6/4/08, Düster Horst <Horst.Duester at bd.so.ch> wrote:
> At the moment I'm a little bit frightened about the release plans and
> the backward compatibility of PyQgis.
>
> We are starting to develop special Plugin applications for business
> processes in our government now. In former times they were solved by
> ArcView3 plugins. Thus for us it is an absolutely must to have long term
> stability of the PyQgis API. It would be a worst case scenario to have
> to redesign our plugins and applications due to changes of the PyQgis
> API every release. Please be aware of this fact.
>
> Regards
> Horst
>
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> Dr. Horst Düster
> GIS-Koordinator, Stv. Amtschef
>
> Kanton Solothurn
> Bau- und Justizdepartement
> Amt für Geoinformation
> SO!GIS Koordination
> Rötistrasse 4
> CH-4501 Solothurn
>
> Telefon ++41(0)32 627 25 32
> Telefax ++41(0)32 627 22 14
>
> mailto:horst.duester at bd.so.ch
> http://www.agi.so.ch
>
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Martin Dobias [mailto:wonder.sk at gmail.com]
> Gesendet am: Dienstag, 3. Juni 2008 19:15
> An: Tim Sutton
> Cc: qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org
> Betreff: Re: [Qgis-developer] Release plans for QGIS 0.11.0 and on to
> 1.0
>
> On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 3:51 PM, Tim Sutton <tim at linfiniti.com> wrote:
>> My idea was along these lines:
>>
>>  - on 1.0 release branch and maintain that as 1.x stable branch with
>> branches for releases coming off that
>>  - continue work in trunk to become the eventual 2.0
>>
>> If fixes are made to 1.x branch which can be ported to 2.0 branch (or
>> vica verca) aply them manually, but I think we should proceed with 2.0
>> work with no concern for the most part of maintaining API
>> compatibility. It would be good to change the plugin API as little as
>> possible but even that should not be an overwhelming constraint.
>
> This plan sounds good to me!
>
> Just one note: plugin API in QGIS consists or core and gui libs API,
> QgisInterface instance and QgisPlugin interface which is subclassed by
> plugins. So it's hard to speak about not breaking plugin API if we do
> refactoring in QGIS libs...
>
> Martin
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>
>

-- 
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Tim Sutton
QGIS Project Steering Committee Member - Release  Manager
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