Steve Litt wrote:
How much backward compatibility? Here's my belief:Age of tools when distro is created: 6 months Age of distro when installed: 4 months Time between distro upgrades 24 months ------------- Desireable backward compatibility: 34 months
Just for your info: LyX-1.5.0 came out Jul 31 2007 and Qt4.1.0 came out Aug 19 2005. So we had approximately 2 years backward compatibility at the time 1.5.0 went out.
Dependencies aren't fun for anyone. By going back a little farther with backward compatibility, especially on packages that are completely interwoven with large numbers of programs in the distribution, the application developer can make it much easier on the user who needs the features of the newer program (in my case, outline view).
Then you might want to go straight to 1.6.0svn: http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/NewInLyX16#toc26
WARNING: 1.6.0 will require Qt4.2.0 which was out Oct 04 2006. So it looks like we will have less than two years this time. But, before you ask, the switch to 4.2 enabled us to remove a lot of hacks and work around in the code and also to bring in some new goodies (see link above). At the time 1.6.0 will be out, Qt4.4 will already be out so requiring Qt4.2 is not too demanding IMO.
Abdel.
