GTK 4.0 [LWN.net]

GTK 4.0

Posted Dec 18, 2020 14:33 UTC (Fri) by Vipketsh (guest, #134480)
In reply to: GTK 4.0 by atnot
Parent article: GTK 4.0

If porting requires only "very minimal porting" why didn't they put in some "very minimal" work and make it no effort required ?

I have to wonder why library authors in general don't or can't make their users into at least drive-by-developers of the library ? After all the users of the library are, by definition, also developers. If they could somehow do this then all this "very minimal porting" wouldn't need to be repeated by each user but could instead be pooled into the central library and everyone would benefit. Synergy and all that.

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GTK 4.0

Posted Dec 18, 2020 20:05 UTC (Fri) by swilmet (guest, #98424) [Link]

Why users of a library are often not also contributors of that said library? Because developers are busy enough with their own projects. Otherwise everybody would end up being kernel developers or physicians and mathematicians.

As a personal story, after two-three years of developing a GTK LaTeX editor (during my spare time), I started to contribute to the GtkSourceView library. And in a short period of time my focus had completely switched to GtkSourceView, not the LaTeX editor anymore (because lack of time of course).

As a single individual, you cannot at the same time develop a whole application with a lot of features, *and* develop all the libraries that you use. Except if you have a lot of funding or a thriving community of contributors.

Again, to continue my personal story, nowadays I would love to write a new text widget, or to significantly improve GtkTextView. But I know that if I do that, it would become my main project for the foreseeable future, and I don't really have the funding for that.