matthiasm wrote: > > FLTK 1.1 is reaching its final state. 1.1.8 has become a wonderful piece > of software, incredibly stable, very fast, and still very fast. Thank > you very much to everyone who contributed! Very few OpenSource projects > survive ten years! > > So what is next?
After reading all replies until now, my conclusion/suggestion would be: FLTK 1.1 development should be frozen at 1.1.8 - bug fixes only in versions 1.1.9 ff. with binary and source compatibility. FLTK 1.1 will support Windows 95/98/ME until "end of life" for those who still need it. The "old FLTK 1.2" is a dead project, but should be kept for those who use it, and to avoid confusion, as others noted. FLTK 1.3 should be the follow-up for FLTK 1.1 and should include the "most wanted" features like utf-8 and printing support. Binary compatibility could be dropped, and some cleanup (method and function names) should be done. This would also mean (slight) source incompatibility, but if it is possible, then this should be done in _one_ step. Adding utf-8 and printing support would IMHO mean that one would have to modify some source code, anyhow. Maybe FLTK 1.3 would only change the API and make use of some features that could not be implemented in 1.1 because of binary compatibility issues, so that FLTK 1.3 would gain in usability for new users and those who would like to have a smooth transition to using 1.3 and the following versions. FLTK 1.3 might also drop Windows 95/98/ME support - or be the last version with 95/98/ME support. FLTK 1.4 would add utf-8 support (w/o 95/98/ME support). FLTK 1.5 would add printing support and maybe other new features. The reason for this way would be to have faster stable releases than in the last 3 or 4 years from FLTK 1.1.x to FLTK 1.1.8. As a developer, I'd more like to have two or three smaller steps with stable releases than one big bang with one new (maybe) less stable release. IMHO, the next important steps (API cleanup, utf-8 and/or printing support) should be done in a way that the release(s) wouldn't take too long to avoid such a long alpha state as with FLTK 2. If the existing utf-8 patch could be easily modified/applied to FLTK 1.3 or FLTK 1.4, then I'd suggest to do this ASAP, because this could attract most new users. And FLTK 2.0 ? I don't know, but I think that there could be one or more intermediate versions (1.6/1.7/...) that get closer to 2.0 (widget layout methods, and others, maybe). Just my thoughts, and my appreciation to the core developers for their good work :-) Regards Albrecht _______________________________________________ fltk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.easysw.com/mailman/listinfo/fltk
