Re: [lwip-users] Detailed description of modifications LwIP 1.3.x -> LwIP 1.4.x

[Kieran Mansley]

On Wed, 2011-01-12 at 14:03 +0100, Marco Jakobs wrote:
> 
> I don't actually understand why there are so many huge changes which
> are 
> makeing it nearly impossible to upgrade from 1.3 to 1.4 ... 

There were a lot of changes between 1.3 and 1.4, some of which modified
the external APIs, but all of which were done with good reason.  Some of
these had been delayed from earlier releases because we thought it
better to get 1.3.2 pretty stable without changing any APIs, and then
make one major release that included all the API changes, rather than
having many smaller releases that did this.

> will there 
> be any kind of detailed documentation like "what exactly has to be
> done 
> for the upgrade" (detailed means not what is written in
> "UPGRADING") ... 
> giving "normal" users a chance to see some light at the end of the
> tunnel?

I would love to say "yes", but in all honesty I think this is unlikely.
lwIP relies on volunteers, and documentation is always something that
few people volunteer for.

As well as the UPGRADING file there are also the example ports for unix
and win32 in the contrib module that are kept up to date with the CVS
lwIP core that you should be able to use for reference and guidance. 

> I love LwIP, but actually i see my stuck with 1.3 forever ... would be
> a 
> pity if LwIP would become a project which can only be handled by the 
> developers and a few cracks who are in the depth of the stack.

I wouldn't want lwIP to become like that either.  However lwIP has
always and will always require a relatively high level of skill and
understanding to use - it's not something you can just download and go
as you must first port it to your hardware and OS (unless someone else
has already done this for you).

I'm sorry this upgrade is causing you problems, and I happy to help if
possible to get you going again, although as with all the developers the
time I can spend on lwIP is rather limited.

Kieran