glib2 @2.44.1: update to version 2.46.0 as required by gtk3 3.18.0 and other GNOME ports

[dbevans (David B. Evans)]

glib2 is currently stuck at version 2.44.1 due new features introduced in unstable version 2.45.3 that require Mac OS X 10.9+ to build. The specific new feature involves a new GNotification backend that implements notifications using the current Mac OS X notification API available on 10.9+. This is a good thing but is not supported on older platforms.

See commit ​https://git.gnome.org/browse/glib/commit/?id=36e093a31a9eb12021e7780b9e322c29763ffa58

Per the comments recently committed to the glib2/glib2-devel ports, this issue is currently under discussion as follows:

​https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2015-September/msg00025.html
​https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=747146

Unfortunately, this situation blocks progress on upgrading gtk3 to current version 3.18.0 as well as a number of other GNOME 3.18 modules released this week:

gtk3                  3.18.0 requires glib-2.0 >= 2.45.8
gobject-introspection 1.46.0 requires glib-2.0 >= 2.45.3
glib-networking       1.46.0 requires glib-2.0 >= 2.46.0
gvfs                  1.26.0 requires glib-2.0 >= 2.45.7
nautilus              3.18.0 requires gtk+-3.0 >= 3.17.5 glib-2.0 >= 2.45.7
tracker               1.6.0  requires glib-2.0 >= 2.45.3
glibmm                2.46.1 requires glib-2.0 >= 2.46.0

I understand the desire to not break glib2 for the older platforms but we need to be able to move ahead with the latest versions of these modules on current Mac OS X platforms as well.

My understanding of the discussion is that the upstream developers do not intend to do anything about this themselves but have pushed the issue back to us to deal with. They suggest using the Growl package to implement GNotifications on the older platforms. They appear to be willing to accept relevant patches for review. So I think the ball is in our court.

A minimal solution that seems feasible and could get us by this impasse would be to create a minimal patch to make the new feature optional and only enable it on 10.9 or later. This shouldn't be a burden for the older platforms since we haven't had any notification support up to this point but would allow current platforms to take advantage of this feature and others available in the latest glib2.

Comments?

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Replying to devans@…:

My understanding of the discussion is that the upstream developers do not intend to do anything about this themselves but have pushed the issue back to us to deal with. They suggest using the Growl package to implement GNotifications on the older platforms. They appear to be willing to accept relevant patches for review. So I think the ball is in our court.

I don't know how many of the people responding to my mailing list question were glib developers and how many were just users, so I don't know if we've received the opinions of the developers or not. But the discussion does appear to have died down without a satisfactory resolution.

A minimal solution that seems feasible and could get us by this impasse would be to create a minimal patch to make the new feature optional and only enable it on 10.9 or later. This shouldn't be a burden for the older platforms since we haven't had any notification support up to this point but would allow current platforms to take advantage of this feature and others available in the latest glib2.

That's the solution I would like, but I was hoping I would not have to be the one to create it, since I don't really know how.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Replying to ryandesign@…:

A minimal solution that seems feasible and could get us by this impasse would be to create a minimal patch to make the new feature optional and only enable it on 10.9 or later. This shouldn't be a burden for the older platforms since we haven't had any notification support up to this point but would allow current platforms to take advantage of this feature and others available in the latest glib2.

That's the solution I would like, but I was hoping I would not have to be the one to create it, since I don't really know how.

Updated in r141131. Once I finally looked into it, I found there were only 2 upstream commits to implement this feature, so it was easy to reverse them. Built successfully on 10.10 and 10.5 so hopefully it will work everywhere.