[webkit-qt] Proposal: Qt 4 removal from trunk, Qt 5 changes

[Simon Hausmann]

On Monday, May 14, 2012 04:31:12 AM ext Dawit A wrote:
> On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 10:10 AM, Simon Hausmann
> 
> <simon.hausmann at nokia.com>wrote:
> > On Thursday, May 10, 2012 09:55:47 AM ext Allan Sandfeld Jensen wrote:
> > > On Wednesday 09 May 2012, Simon Hausmann wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > > 
> > > > After a few emails, let me formulate a concrete proposal:
> > > >     (1) Andrea Diamantini maintains an up-to-date port of WebKit that
> > 
> > runs
> > 
> > > > with Qt 4, on gitorious.org.
> > > > 
> > > >     (2) End of May we remove Qt 4 code paths from WebKit trunk.
> > > >     
> > > >     (3) We replace the Qt 4 based bot on build.webkit.org with the Qt
> > 
> > 5
> > 
> > > >     one
> > > > 
> > > > (hosted on Amazon, right?)
> > > 
> > > After some thought, I think we should maintain atleast one stable
> > > desktop
> > > version of QtWebKit in trunk, and I believe Lars already officially
> > 
> > stated
> > 
> > > that Qt 5.0 will not be fully ready for the desktop, so I suggest we
> > > maintain QtWebkit for Qt 4.8 until Qt 5.x is deemed ready for the
> > 
> > desktop.
> > 
> > > Since we only support Qt 4.8 for WebKit1 where not that much development
> > 
> > is
> > 
> > > happening, how much would we gain in dropping that support anyway?
> > 
> > It's a fair question, and I admit I didn't outline that in the proposal.
> > The
> > maintenance of the Qt 4 port currently costs us
> > 
> >     (1) Separate *Qt4.cpp files in a few places (including the much loved
> > 
> > JSC<>QT bindings ;)
> > 
> >    (2) A fair chunk of #ifdefs
> >    
> >    (3) A bot to maintain (This is a very high cost, especially for Ossy).
> > 
> > I'm proposing the remove the Qt 4 port from trunk because nobody appears
> > to be
> > interested in taking over that maintenance in trunk. Andrea on the other
> > hand
> > volunteered to do an out-of-trunk maintenance, which is a great
> > opportunity I
> > thought.
> 
> What exactly is involved in maintaining it in the trunk itself ? Would such
> maintenance require more than one person ?  I just do not see how the
> out-of-trunk maintenance is supposed to work. 

In-trunk maintenance requires keeping a bot green and regularly catching up 
with changes that happen in WebKit. If we just keep the Qt 4 code in trunk and 
let it "rot" then for a while people will continue to blindly change the Qt 4 
files if they do internal API changes, but that'll stop sooner than later. Then 
the code becomes bitrot and it looks bad.

An out-of-trunk maintenance requires probably more effort in merging itself, 
but it's completely up to the people maintaining it _when_ they choose to do 
it and how long it'll take them.

> For example, if a 2.3 version
> of QtWebKit was supposed to be released from such branch, how would that be
> treated ? Would it be considered an official update of QtWebKit for Qt4 ?

I doubt that Digia or anyone else is going to roll a new Qt 4.9, so in the 
light of that it would be a standalone release. Available to interested 
parties who would like a newer version of WebKit with Qt 4.x.

It's in our hands :)


Simon