[geos-devel] RFC 9: Restore C++ API as public API

[Mateusz Loskot]

On Fri, 17 May 2019 at 08:36, Sebastiaan Couwenberg <sebastic at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> On 5/17/19 3:23 PM, Andrew Bell wrote:
> > Frequent, breaking API changes seem a problem. ABI changes seem more like a
> > small annoyance. I can understand how a stable ABI would be nice, but I
> > personally don't think it's more important than a good interface for
> > library users.
>
> And that's the difference in perspective between a developer and
> distribution packager.

It is not my role of a library developer to make packaging easier.
There are many PMs and PDMs, OS-specific, distro-specific
as well as number of OS-agnostic ones. It is not a library developer
role to promise an easy life to maintainers of any of the PMs/PDMs.
It would be a sisyphean task.

Since day one, GEOS has been a C++ library.
Since version 2.2, GEOS offers C API.
Since version 3.6, things started shifting in a direction that transforms
the library, departing from the original concept.
It dents the trust inside the team (what else will get hastily broken?).

It's those who support the intrusive transformation should have forked
GEOS and make their way, not those who want to maintain GEOS
according to the original concept.

Best regards,
-- 
Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net