[NUT-devel] NUT spec review - chapters

[Diego Biurrun]

On Sat, Feb 09, 2008 at 02:38:17PM +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 09, 2008 at 01:57:51PM +0100, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> > On Sat, Feb 09, 2008 at 01:49:03PM +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> > > Iam very strogly against breaking compatibility
> > 
> > Breaking compatibility with what?
> 
> With the frozen spec. It is EXTREEMLY unprofessional to call something
> frozen and then break compatibility for a dubious improvment.
> One shouldnt complain about mpeg being lame while then acting even more lame.

The spec was called frozen, yes.  However, just calling something frozen
is inconsequential.  The important part of calling something frozen are
the ramifications of the act of calling it frozen.

What people care about is not that the word "frozen" appears on some
random document on the internet.  Instead, once something is called
frozen certain things should be guaranteed.

One thing that should be guaranteed is stability of interfaces, but much
more important is that the project has moved beyond a certain point and
all important issues are resolved.  Now if you have a look at recent
discussions and nutissues.txt, this is not yet the case.

Thus, I disagree that compatibility should not be broken.  Calling the
spec frozen was premature.  Make all the changes that are necessary
without burdening yourself with bogus backwards compatibility.  The
moment to take these things into account has not yet come.

If you are afraid of appearing unprofessional then having called the
spec frozen at some point really is the least of your troubles.

Note that I'm not trying to flame here, I will shortly send a message
with an outline how to move forward and professionalize NUT.

Diego