[Users] GTK 4

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Fri, 23 Apr 2021 16:27:27 -0700, Tom via Users wrote:
>The ONLY thing it offers claws-mail is it will make the UI look like
>your looking at it through binoculars, this "HiDPI" support at the
>expensive of everyone else who thinks a 1080P screen in front of your
>face is more than enough.

Hi,

unfortunately my EIZO isn't a HiDPI monitor, but I would benefit a lot
from HiDPI when doing artwork. Due to missing professional software in
the *BSD and Linux universe, I anyway need to use Apple for my artwork.
The point is, that there are domains that require gear you might not
need, but other users do need.

>X11 is not going away any time soon. The people who complain about
>"tearing" problems on cheap intel iGPUs all they need to do is set
>anti-tear = true in their Xorg.conf. aka triple-buffering. Or stop
>using buggy, proprietary novidya graphics cards and get a much more
>reliable AMD or Matrox card.

I bought an inexpensive Intel CPU with integrated GPU to get rid of all
the issues I experienced with inexpensive AMD/ATI and NVIDIA machines
for real-time audio. The reason I chose inexpensive mobos, CPUs and
graphics is the low power consumption. They are fast enough for my
needs and don't need much electricity. However, suddenly Intel stopped
supporting FLOSS and now we need to either migrate away from the
"intel" to the "modesetting" drive, to get rid of some issues, to run
into other issues or to maintain a kernel <= 5.4. I build my own
longterm 4.19 real-time patched kernels, since the longterm 5.4
real-time patched kernel does cause other issues, that aren't related
to the graphics issue. I don't send computer waste to Africa, I stay
with a computer as long as possible.

>It does not matter of redhat/fedora (IBM) declared gtk2 "EOL". That
>doesn't mean gtk2 still isn't receiving fixes. Go check the git repo.

The required version of webkit doesn't receive any fixes at all. It is
a highly vulnerable piece of software.

>What that does mean is that gtk2 is mature, stable, reliable, and no
>longer changing for the sake of change.

While for some Arch Linux and Ubuntu users it still is stable, it
became unstable on my Arch install and is only stable on my Ubuntu 16.04
LTS. It already is the same for several other users and it likely
becomes an issue for more and more users in the close future.

>Are you flippin kidding me?

You only see what's relevant to you and you don't care what is
important to other. You don't understand the whole situation. You
knowledge is incomplete.

>A system running gtk 2, 3 ,4 ,5 and 6 all at the same time?

No, support for older releases gets dropped. GTK2 is EOL.

>And what's worse I expect the majority of developer time to be spent on
>fixes stupid little gtk3/4 related bugs because the software is so
>unstable and immature than improving claws-mail itself.

Again, I'm in favour of GTK2, too, but actually nowadays GTK3 is more
stable. GTK3 offers several cons, but in the end GTK2 stops working
for everybody.

>Regarding the "security focused distros". You don't improve security by
>throwing removing the ability of older software to work.

This is a misinterpretation of facts. Major distros, user friendly or
user centric dropped this particular webkit for security reasons. Not
because those distros are hardened by default, just because it's highly
vulnerable and unsupported by upstream.

>Also, why do you care about some hypothetical user's problem?

Reality isn't hypothetical. Why don't you get more knowledge and
understand the reality?

>Same thing with FreeBSD. The things in the ports tree are the things
>FreeBSD users and developers actually want so they did it and shared
>it.

Then just do it and share it and don't lament that other to do it for
you. Btw. FreeBSD changed a lot, too.

>If you think everything I said is full of crap, at the very least
>consider spending time targeting tqt3, qt5, or motif instead of gtk3.

Some developers migrated from GTK to Qt. I'm not a Claws developer and
I'm fine with GTK3, at least for Claws. Btw. Qt has got it's pitfalls,
too. I maintain more different Qt releases on my machine, than different
GTK releases.

>Speaking of, can I pay you to continue supporting claws-mail without
>GNOME dependencies? Like a https://liberapay.com/ like thing?

I wonder if the claws developers will make you an offer. If not, you
probably could pay somebody to fork Claws.

Regards,
Ralf