On 09/11/2010 19:08, Aryeh Gregor wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 7:17 AM, Markus Krötzsch
> <[email protected]>  wrote:
>> The proposed backward compatibility page says that trunk extensions
>> are only compatible with the current MW version. This implies that it is not
>> possible to cleanly develop an extension that supports multiple MW versions
>> in trunk at all: since branches are copies of an earlier state of the trunk,
>> the proposed guidelines entail that branches are also compatible with only
>> one version of MediaWiki.
>
> Actually, what it says is:
>
> "Extensions are branched along with MediaWiki, so trunk extensions
> only have to support current trunk MediaWiki. However, per #General
> principles, don't break support for old MediaWiki versions unless the
> compatibility code is causing actual quantifiable problems, because
> it's nice if users can get the extra features or bug fixes of trunk
> extensions even if they're still using old MediaWiki. Some extensions'
> maintainers deliberately maintain compatibility with old MediaWiki
> versions, and their wishes should be respected in all cases."
>
> The last sentence answers your question.  The phrase "have to" in the
> first sentence means they don't have to support old releases, but they
> can if their maintainers want them to.

Great, I overlooked this last part. +1 from me.

What remains of my email is the question how this "wish" is implemented 
technically. Either one has to generally give up potentially problematic 
updates on ./trunk/extensions, or there must be some record of each 
extension's compatibility wish to determine which extensions an update 
should be applied to.

-- Markus


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