On Wednesday 19 May 2010 18:50:01 Jeff Licquia wrote:
> There could be an issue with newer MeeGo releases, say a MeeGo 1.1 app
> running on a MeeGo 1.0 device.  But there are other hurdles to cross if
> we want to support that model (what to do with new 1.1 functionality,
> for instance).  As long as we do our job correctly, and 1.0 apps
> continue to work on 1.1 devices, then we have at least a 90% solution:
> just build your app against the oldest MeeGo version you want to
> support.

This has always been an issue in the Maemo world and recently became a really 
big issue.

I am a strong advocate for building your app against the oldest platform 
version which can support it and relying on ABI compatability to mean it will 
run on newer versions.  But this turned out to be very hard to support in the 
Maemo world.  Will the Meego OBS have an easy way to support this (create an 
app at at time when version 3.4 is current, build it against version 2.3 and 
install it in a repository which will allow it to be found by all users using 
versions later than 2.3 including versions that don't exist yet)?

I also recognise that not all developers agree with my preferred approach.  
There are many who wish to only support the latest platform and would be 
quite happy (possibly even prefer) if their app did not run against earlier 
versions.  This is primarily to reduce support costs (mainly testing) but a 
desire to make use of new platform features also plays a part.  These 
developers may intend to release a new version of their app with most 
platform releases and always delete old versions so it cannot be installed on 
old releases any more.

Both sorts of developers exist in the Maemo world today and can be expected in 
the Meego world as well, I guess.

Graham
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