Felix Röthenbacher wrote:
Michael Wechner wrote:
Hi
Somebody has removed the
lib/excalibur-io-1.1.jar
library although I have added it just recently such that Lenya is
backwards compatible.
Lenya is still backwards compatible as the functionality of the
deprecated excalibur-io-1.1.jar is provided by the new commons-io
library.
maybe the functionality, but not the API, or am I missing something?!
I don't want to get into a commit war, but this library is necessary
for staying backwards compatible.
To me, it's seems to be impossible to stay backwards compatible with
code that is open-source.
I am not going to use a strong way ;-) but that's not true at all!
What difference is there between Open Source and closed source re
backwards compatibility?!
Everybody can do what he wants with the code
but must be aware that it will change in the future (with the exception
of well-defined and agreed-on API's). Staying backwards-compatible would
mean that you can't modify any functionality, even if it's buggy:
"bugs" is an exception to the rule
someone might rely on it and may even exploit the bug for achieving
some tasks (see browser implementations of non-standard CSS).
It's not sufficient to upgrade Lenya itself, but one needs to keep in
mind, that other people
might have built publications based on this library.
Taken this into consideration, see my comment above. The changes
re the library replacement are minor. The functionality is
provided by the new library. With respect to code maintenance it's
better to jettison deprecated libraries and keep a clean code base.
no, it's very clear what backwards compatibility means and if a
community agreed to
stay backwards compatible within a branch and people are relying on it,
then one
needs to stick to that committment, doesn't matter what it means to the
code base.
Without backwards compatibility there will be no-one using it, except
people who
don't use it in productive environments or have infinite resources at
hand to upgrade
all the time.
I am not saying that this is a bad thing, but the Lenya community and
Apache in general has
decided to create software on which people can rely on and backwards
compatibility is one of
the keys to this.
Michi
No commit war, just my 2 cents :-)
- Felix
Michi
--
Michael Wechner
Wyona - Open Source Content Management - Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com http://lenya.apache.org
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