Re: XFree 4.2.1 + fontconfig-2

[Alan Hourihane <alanh at fairlite dot demon dot co dot uk>]

On Mon, Sep 23, 2002 at 03:03:54 -0700, Nicholas Wourms wrote:
> 
> --- Alan Hourihane <alanh@fairlite.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 18, 2002 at 10:25:48 +0200, Alexander Gottwald wrote:
> > > That is a windows problem. The XFree libraries are in fact
> > versioned.
> > > (libXaw.so.6.1 vs libXaw.so.7.0)
> 
> > Alexander,
> > 
> > You've hit a sore spot here. The issue of Xft1 vs Xft2 was only the
> > starting of a larger picture.
> > 
> > Your right in the fact that all libraries are versioned, and we
> > don't
> > respect that for any library. libX11.a should really be
> > libX11-6_2.a etc
> > or some equivalent of.
> > 
> > We also need to consider backwards compatibility as to not break
> > older
> > applications.
> > 
> > I've fixed the immediate problem and can re-instate Xft1. But any
> > want to pipe up with anything on this topic ?
> 
> Like it or not, if we make the switch we will break binary
> compatibility.  This is, of course, because runtime libraries cannot
> be symlinked on Windows.  Still, this is something that will have to
> be done sooner or later (again perhaps for the 4.3.0 release?). 
> However, I think the benefits in the longrun will outweigh the
> incovience of a few questions from people caught in this switch. 
> I'll let Harold voice his mind on this now...

We don't have to symlink - we can copy libX11-6_2.dll to libX11.dll etc
to maintain compatibility and bug fixes to these kinds of libraries.
A small script here will do the trick.

But I think we really need to do this for 4.3.0 and just update the
FAQ for those caught in the switch - like you say.

Alan.