On Tue, Oct 04, 2005 at 10:36:13AM +0200, Ralf Stephan wrote:
bryce:
but as disturbing as it is, free software does the same thing, force users to upgrade their Windows version.
Except in this case, win9* users have it entirely in their power to control this, in that they can participate in providing that support. Indeed, Inkscape can *only* feasibly support a given platform if it has adequate participation by users of that platform.
That's why the release note's apology should include the bugzilla link, instead of only frustrating users. If there are many really active Win9* users, branching Gtk would be the most logical thing for them.
Well, if the issue is simply that gtk 2.8 uses cairo, which has functions that do not work on win98, then perhaps a potential solution would be for win98 users to create their own inkscape package that uses older gtk libraries, that *do* work on win98?
Presently, Inkscape itself requires only gtk 2.4. I believe that the windows version of Inkscape moved to later versions of gtk in order to gain bug fixes for issues encountered on windows, so it is is possible that by reverting to an earlier gtk, windows inkscape users would have to endure those bugs, but perhaps that would be better than not having inkscape at all?
Also, regarding the irritation of being told essentially, "Fix it yourself," yes I know that's annoying. However, realize that it is also annoying for developers to receive bugs from windows users, create fixes, then ask for a windows user to test and verify the fix and never hear anything back. I see many developers fixing bugs by just guessing at what might be causing the problem, and then having to close them without ever knowing if they really got fixed or not. Just having someone on Win98 to just test the bug fixes that developers do would be a huge help. I think part of the push to drop support for win98 is that developers are irritated by never getting feedback on their fixes.
Now, I should add that there *are* a lot of users who are good at giving feedback, particularly people on this list. These users are vital to our being able to support versions of Inkscape on platforms other than Linux. We just need more good people like this.
Now, while in the past I think we could have gotten by with just having some windows users to give feedback to the developers like that, today I think it's gotten to the point where we really need to have some dedicated people doing development (bug fixing at least) on Windows.
For this particular problem with gtk and Inkscape, it sort of sounds like there may be solutions that could be achieved without needing to resort to coding. It could simply be a matter of experimenting with different dlls, and then producing a zip file package of those dlls. This is definitely something that a non-coder could do, although it would require some technical skill and time to test it out thoroughly.
Bryce