Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

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palacs
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Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

Post by palacs »

Hi there,

Assume I want to develop for Windows 98. My only choice is the 3.0.1 release which still supports MSVC 2005 (and thus Windows 98). However, there is a newer release 3.1.0 which supposedly contains all the bugfixes since 3.0.2 but breaks the backward compatibility for legacy systems like Windows 98.

My question is that how could I obtain only bugfixes for the release 3.0.2 and keep the compatibility? I don't need new features, only bugfixes.

Best
catalin
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Re: Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

Post by catalin »

You follow the commits applied to 3.1.0 and backport them to 3.0.2.
But by all means, that is an unrealistic goal. There have been discussions among wxW developers about certain fixes that were too difficult to justify the effort of backporting. It will be even more difficult for a wxW user, don't you think?
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doublemax
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Re: Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

Post by doublemax »

So few things are backported from 3.1.x to the 3.0.3 branch, that i don't think it's worth the hassle. But I guess there should be a separate branch for 3.0.3 anywhere on GIT.
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Re: Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

Post by catalin »

doublemax wrote:I guess there should be a separate branch for 3.0.3 anywhere on GIT.
Indeed, it should be WX_3_0_BRANCH
palacs
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Re: Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

Post by palacs »

Is it guaranteed that if I write my application with wxWidgets from the 3.0.3 branch, it will run on older systems having the 3.0.2 version (e.g. older stable distros of Linux with frozen versions)?

I mean, is it true that the 3.0.3 branch will only receive fixes that will not change the API, just some internal behavior which was buggy?
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Re: Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

Post by catalin »

Yes it is.
3.0.3 will be ABI compatible with both 3.0.1 and 3.0.2.

See also Application Binary Compatibility (replace 2.6.x with 3.0.x in those examples).
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Re: Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

Post by palacs »

How long an "oldstable" branch is expected to be supported in years, months, etc. ? (so how long will the 3.0.X branch receive maintenance fixes?)
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Re: Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

Post by doublemax »

How long an "oldstable" branch is expected to be supported in years, months, etc. ? (so how long will the 3.0.X branch receive maintenance fixes?)
Theoretically until the next major version (3.2) comes out. But, as mentioned before, very few things are actually backported from the current development branch to the 3.0.x branch. The wxWidgets developer team is already small enough and nobody really likes to spend time on this, so usually only fixes for critical or embarrassing bugs are backported.
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palacs
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Re: Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

Post by palacs »

What do we mean by "embarassing" bugs? Crashes and security holes? And by non-embarassing?
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Re: Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

Post by doublemax »

"non-embarrassing" are the ones you'd be interested in. "Embarrassing" are the ones that are not critical from a user's point of view, just embarrassing for the programmer who made them.
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Re: Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

Post by catalin »

There are no guarantees on the support period of a branch, but usually at least until a minor version bump.
As far as I've seen, most of the simple fixes are backported too, as long as they do not require a lot of work, and as long as they do not break [binary] compatibility. For complicated fixes there has to be a really good reason to be backported by the maintainers.
There is no exact definition of what "simple", "complicated" would mean at a certain time, they should just help you see the bigger picture.

Just out of curiosity, what is that you found missing in 3.0.2, that is present in 3.1.1, and you absolutely cannot live without ?
palacs
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Re: Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

Post by palacs »

catalin wrote:Just out of curiosity, what is that you found missing in 3.0.2, that is present in 3.1.1, and you absolutely cannot live without ?
Nothing. It's the opposite. I miss the support of legacy operating systems (like Windows 95/98) from 3.1. This is why I would like to stick with 3.0.X. Just wanted to make sure that it will have maintenance fixes for a while.
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Re: Fixes for 3.0.2 without losing support for legacy platforms

Post by catalin »

Well then, I think it's safe to say that it will have maintenance fixes for a while.
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