KDE Core/Platform 11/Eliminating Duplication With Qt
< KDE Core | Platform 11
Notes
- A Good Thing (TM), lt's do it
- Must start now to get what we need into Qt5 or will miss the chance
- Freeze kdelibs4, but not too hard may need changes or can backport some KDE5 stuff
- Licence:
- Need review by eV lawyers to reassure contributors they don't lose rights, are fully informed of consequences, start asap as may take time
- Create list of known contributors who have/will agree to Qt license so we can reuse their code if appropriate (will still need explicit agreement per contribution?)
- Need to be very careful don't copy code of those who oppose code donations
- Much depends on success of OpenGov
- All contributions from KDE must be seen as for better of Qt not just KDE, we need to be pragmatic
- If get in early with quality contributions can establish position of trust and authority
- Start small with some test cases to prove process, gain trust:
- KUrl/QUrl - Very simple case with minimal change required
- KLineEdit/QLineEdit(?) - More involved case
- QDateTime - Test for working with Qt Brisbane to develop common requirements
- Printing - Big test case for major changes + maintainership
- Review progress at Desktop Summit, if good progress then commit to full process
- Need class-by-class review:
- Work with dependencies team, need common note
s somewhere
- Will need expert advice on each class, we can't know every reason for duplication
- Find if a Qt equivalent (not always obvious!)
- Determine why KDE version exists
- Determine if Qt version is already good enough (may have improved since K class created)
- Determine if we really still need any extra features
- Need to consider features, quality, performance
- Reach a conclusion:
- Keep K class entirely
- Keep K class but move some features to Qt
- Remove K class, use Q class completely
- Remove K class, use Q class with new K helper class
- Not everything needs to be in Qt 5.0, but do need to be structured so we can cleanly add new features in 5.1, 5.2