Re: [Libreoffice] ./autogen failed.... on Mac OS X 10.6.6 Please advise me where to get help on this issue...

Hi Norbert, *,

On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 12:54 AM, Norbert Thiebaud <nthiebaud@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 4:47 PM, Christian Lohmaier
> <lohmaier+libreoffice@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Using the 10.4 SDK is the only way when you want builds that run on
> > the baseline of 10.4 - unless you want to drop support for Mac OSX
> > Tiger, then this is the only way.
>
> Really the core issue is support for mac PPC right ?

Well - ture ratio of intel users who still user 10.4 is smaller
compared to ratio of PPC users sticking with 10.4 - but I don't have
any numbers of LO/OOo users.

But http://update.omnigroup.com/ lists 10.4 declining in percentage,
but still clearly above 10% of Mac users

> [...]
> and at some point, it won't be possible to install 10.4 SDK on new
> Mac... and people won't be able to build libreoffice at all

Well - if this will be the case some time, then mac port really will
have a problem. Either you tell all 10.4 users: Sorry, you're stuck
with our last release, support for 10.4 is dropped - or you tell
developers: "Don't download the latest version of XCode, it removed
support for 10.4 - until we adjusted the code, stick with version
<whatever> of XCode"

So yes, once XCode will no longer provide 10.4u support, then LO code
must allow building against other SDKs, but this will not be
overnight. You'll have a couple of months to adjust.

> it's like saying we won't support kde4 because otherwise some people
> may break kde3 support without noticing because they build
> kde4....

The ratio of linux users/develoeprs to Mac users/developer is hardly
comparable - you got distros' staff working on LO after all.
And it is not the same either, as the UI layer is rather clearly
seperated from the rest, there are already different UI layers. If
KDE3 is broken: Doesn't matter, you still have gtk and even the
generic one. But if it will only run on 10.6, the 10.4 and 10.5 users
don't have a choice or fallback.

> > I will always oppose to dropping the 10.4 requirement.
> 'always' is a very long time...

well, always unless the situation changes. Situation = my impression
of what manpower is available and what apple will still support, etc.

> You mean that if someone go to the trouble of providing patch so that
> we can build a native 64 bits version for Mac
> you would reject/revert these patches ?

If it would change the default of not building against 10.4: yes, I
would oppose the patch (at least that part of it)

Look at the linux desaster. Despite so many people using linux,
working with linux, none of the three betas would run on my system.
I'm getting dizzy when I think about not "enforcing" 10.4
compatibility and what it will mean to 10.4 support. People will
(without bad intentions) introduce stuff that will not be compatible
with 10.4, and even worse they then won't have the knowledge or will
to fix it up.

my 0,02€ only...

ciao
Christian