[arch-dev-public] Mono release 2.8 with major changes is coming (soon)

[Eric Bélanger]

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Daniel Isenmann <daniel.isenmann at gmx.de> wrote:
>  Am 04.08.2010 16:19, schrieb Eric Bélanger:
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 2:28 AM, Daniel Isenmann<daniel.isenmann at gmx.de>
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>>  Hi,
>>>
>>> I know that many of you don't use mono, but anyway a new major release is
>>> coming with some changes which may affect packages which depends on mono.
>>>
>>> I have read the changelog draft of mono 2.8 (you can find it here:
>>> http://mono-project.com/Release_Notes_Mono_2.8) and there are some
>>> significant changes, like the removing of .NET 1.1 profile. Normally that
>>> shouldn't be a problem, because most applications are using .NET 2.0
>>> profile
>>> and not the old 1.1, but who knows if some applications using the old
>>> one.
>>> If an application uses the old 1.1 profile it will be automatically
>>> switched
>>> to the 2.0 profile and a warning should appear.
>>> Seven old and deprecated libraries will be removed from the mono release,
>>> to
>>> be precisly:
>>>  * ByteFX.Data
>>>  * Mono.Data
>>>  * Microsoft.JScript and Microsoft.Vsa
>>>  * FirebirdSql.Data.Firebird
>>>  * Mono.Data.SybaseClient
>>>  * Mono.Data.SqliteClient
>>>
>>> Mono 2.8 will ship a new garbage collector (SGen), I will activate it by
>>> default. You can change that by setting an environment variable
>>> (information
>>> will follow at release day). The new release includes 4 new libraries
>>> from
>>> Microsoft directly, they are licensed und MS-PL or Apache 2 Open Source
>>> Licenses, so that shouldn't be a problem for us.
>>>
>>> Another critical change will be the ThreadPool behavior. This has been
>>> changed and will potentially break existing applications.
>>>
>>> I have written in my "Away" email that you can update my packages, but
>>> please DO NOT UPDATE the mono packages during my vacation. I will update
>>> mono after my vacation (if it will be released in that time). As always I
>>> try to do the update as smooth as possible, but this time there are some
>>> real big changes in the new release which may not "allow" this.
>>>
>>> Sorry for the long email and such specific information about the new mono
>>> release, but I think it's necessary for such a major release.
>>>
>>>  -Daniel
>>>
>> It might be a bit off-topic but I'm wondering if, with that new
>> release of mono, you'll add moonlight to extra. IIRC, when we removed
>> the moonlight package from community a while ago because it had to be
>> rebuilt and that version wasn't building anymore, you mentionned that
>> eventually you'll add moonlight to extra. Is it still your intention
>> or am I remembering incorrectly?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Eric
>>
>
> Your are right, this is still my intention.

Thanks.

> But the actual moonlight
> sourcecode need some files from mono which are only present during
> compilation time. Furthermore the old and stable release of moonlight
> doesn't compile with our mono, but the latest snapshot doesn't compile with
> our mono, too. They need newer version of mono. The moonlight developers are
> aware of that and it should be fixed after moonlight 3.0 final is released
> and depend on the current mono release then. So, the first moonlight version
> which will be added to [extra] maybe will be moonlight 3.0.
>

Of course.  When writing my email, I had moonlight 3 in mind which I
believe will be released at the same time or after mono 2.8.  There's
no need wasting time on the older versions.