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Anders Olofsson wrote:
> 
> Looks good but I have a few comments as well.
> 
> * Adding features to the API should not stop older plugins from loading
> as long as the new API is still backwards compatible with the version
> required by the plugin.

If I may ask: why even bother with API and - even harder - ABI
compatibility?

How many plugins from how many different sources are there gonna be?
Will they be so many, that it's impossible to manage them in a single
distribution?

Plugins are a good way to keep a clean spearation of a core and optional
features or providing different means to an end (e.g. different GUIs).
But they don't automatically mean, that there has to be a backwards
compatible API and it doesn't mean that there has to be an ABI.

This is open source. There's nothing preventing one from compiling the
plugins with the core on the same system. So it's feasible to just ship
all known plugins with the core and make just the loading optional. This
model even works for the whole Linux kernel with thousands of drivers
written by at least hundreds of different contributors. I can hardly see
licq growing bigger than that.

Providing backwards compatible APIs and ABIs ain't fun. It's difficult
and tedious work which steals developer's time that may be better spent
on improvements. Don't forget, that licq does not only run on a single
architecture. You should at least listen to my advice and not do it
unless you're really sure that this is absolutely needed.

Oh and thanks for your great work so far :)

Stefan
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