[Users] GTK 4

[Aaron Fischer]

On Tue, 13 Apr 2021 18:18:01 -0700
Tom via Users <users at lists.claws-mail.org> wrote:

> My opinion is just to drop the GTK3 and continue using gtk2.

That will -- on the long term -- define the end of this project. I will
try to explain this:

As others already mentioned, some Linux distributions
already dropped support for gtk2 and it is getting harder and harder to
actually make CM compile. This makes it even more of a hassle for
package maintainers to continue build the package.

Someone can argue that this is just the problem of a single person who
have to deal with that and with some effort, a static binary without
depending on external libs could be hacked together. But this do not
eliminate the following facts:

* gtk2 got to a point of EOL[1]. Big distributions try hard[2] to wipe
  out gtk2 by eliminating the dependency to it. Which is a good thing,
  because unmaintained software will not get (security) updates. More
  security focused distributions do it more drastically by removing all
  packages which depend on gtk2. New hardware will not get full support.

* gtk as a GUI lib has a special role: It stuck between the application
  and the display server. On the display server front, there are
  movement towards Wayland. X.Org is a dead end, nobody want to work on
  it any more[3]. But the underlying Hardware is constantly
  evolving, (HDPI screens is just an example) so the display server
  need to support it. Wayland is the future and so is gtk3/4, if you
  like it or not. xwayland will make X11/X.Org applications still run,
  but this is just a big "migration vehicle". And because gtk2 will not
  get updated any more, more and more bugs will arise when everybody is
  using Wayland and use new hardware.

* A lot of popular gtk themes stop supporting gtk2. So the user
  experience will drop dramatically when every application looks right
  but CM looks odd.

* Development on CM gets harder and harder. For example, it would be
  awesome to use CM on the PinePhone, but to make this possible, a LOT
  of work need to be done. With gtk4, this would be much easier.

I've seen this "don't touch it, its fine as it is, we like it that
way" mentality so often. The result is abandon the project or a
complete rewrite. Migrating the GUI toolkit to another version is not
the funniest task in the world, but IMHO it has to be done in order to
keep the project alive in the long run.

I personally like the look and feel of gtk2 and I am perfectly fine
with it, but the software and hardware around is evolving constantly.
Ignoring everything outside the own bubble can be done to a certain
point, but not forever. And for me, I can't ignore it any more.

Aaron

[1]:https://blog.gtk.org/2020/12/16/gtk-4-0/
[2]:https://archlinux.org/todo/gtk-2-eol/
[3]:https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2019/06/24/on-the-road-to-fedora-workstation-31/