Re: RFC: require librsvg to implement SVG image support

[Jean Abou Samra]

Le 14/01/2023 à 16:45, Jonas Hahnfeld a écrit :
> On Wed, 2023-01-11 at 23:13 +0100, Han-Wen Nienhuys wrote:
> > Regarding rsvg and rust: maybe we could try with an older version of
> > librsvg first? Rust was only introduced in 2.41, so if we go with
> > 2.40, we can postpone the worry about compiling Rust.
> librsvg 2.41 was released in 2017, the last bugfix release for version
> 2.40(.21) is from February 2020, while the one before (2.40.20) is from
> December 2017. Going for an ancient version like this without a plan
> for upgrading was exactly one of the pain points in the later days of
> GUB, and I take offense in even discussing to consciously get into that
> situation again.
>
> I strongly believe that we must figure this out *now*, before deciding
> to go that route.



I'm not taking offense, but I agree that we shouldn't lock ourselves
into old versions without a long-term plan.



> Relatedly, I also think it was a mistake to ask the
> users at this stage - they cannot assess the technical difficulties of
> making either solution happen.



No, they can't -- and I didn't ask them to. Not sure if I was
clear enough in my post to -user -- sorry if I wasn't --, but it
was absolutely not meant as any sort of "referendum". We make
decisions, not users. If technical reasons of maintainability weigh
sufficiently for one solution, we should take it.

It does help to compare the solutions. It's one factor in the equation
(but not the only one). Had everyone wanted PDF, I would have reconsidered
this proposal.

I would have to test how difficult it actually is to cross-compile
Poppler, but my own assessment is that keeping MinGW cross-compilation
of a C++ project working is potentially more burdensome on the long-term
than with a Rust one, so to me, both aspects speak in favor of librsvg.
I recognize that, having some (but not a lot of) experience with Rust
may make me biased.

By the way, I checked the version of CMake in CentOS 7. According
to https://pkgs.org/search/?q=cmake, it's 2.8.12, while the minimum
required CMake version for building current versions of Poppler
(I checked the latest release, Poppler 23.01.0, as well as master)
is 3.16.0. Thus, either way, we'll -- unfortunately -- have to accept
that some tools needed to run a build need to be installed outside
of the distribution.

OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature