ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Michael Zanetti <michael.zanetti@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi

On 17.09.2015 13:22, James Henstridge wrote:
> On 17 September 2015 at 18:53, Alberto Mardegan
> <alberto.mardegan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:alberto.mardegan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
> wrote:
> 
>     Anyway, how to proceed? I'm not very fond of backporting the changes
>     to the 15.04 framework, because we shouldn't modify a framework after
>     having released it (save for bugfixes). What if an application starts
>     using the new Online Accounts APIs in 15.04, and a user installs it in
>     one device which has the 15.04 framework, but not updated to the
>     latest OTAs? If one has the original 15.04 framework, applications
>     using the new Online Accounts API would not work there.
> 
> 
> As Oliver says, we won't be having a 15.10 framework on shipped devices,
> so that is out.  So if you want to deliver any of this before 16.04, the
> 15.04 branch is your only option.
> 
> Assuming you can deliver the new API without breaking backward
> compatibility, it is probably worth pursuing.  We've had a few other
> large changes land in OTA releases, such as a complete rewrite of the
> thumbnailer backend, so it won't be a first.

We can't deliver new features without bumping the framework. Well, we
can, but that's equally breaking it. Someone wanting to use the new
features would have no way to "depend" on them. If they are just used
nevertheless, the app would not work on a phone that claims to have
support for 15.04 but hasn't upgraded to the latest OTA yet. We've ran
into this issue with previous OTAs already.

> 
> It's not ideal, and perhaps it would help to declare some "point
> release" frameworks for these feature additions, but for now all devices
> are receiving the updates at the same time so I wouldn't be surprised if
> there are a few apps on the store that already require features not
> found in the first image advertising ubuntu-sdk-15.04.

Yes, I agree. Perhaps this is a good opportunity to discuss how to
handle the frameworks in the future. IMO the current way doesn't cut it.
We can't have just 2 frameworks per year at the pace we want to deliver
new features.

Br,
Michael

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