today's git broke winetricks gecko :-(

[Jacek Caban]

Steven Edwards wrote:
> Hi Jacek,
>
> On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 10:16 AM, Jacek Caban <jacek at codeweavers.com> wrote:
>   
>> Did you read the page from the link that is on the dialog informing about
>> missing Gecko?
>>     
>
> I've been kind of following this thread and see where Jörg is coming
> from. I don't think the argument about broken wine due to missing
> gecko makes much sense given the way we have other soft dependencies
> that can be missing if you build Wine yourself. A good example is the
> xml or opengl libraries. It's possible to have a working wine for
> specific needs without this package. If we are going to require this
> package for every wine install then I would argue we should not have
> any other soft dependencies either.
>   

These dependences are different because they are Linux dependences. 
There is no way we could tread Gecko the same way.

> If a packager has not packaged Gecko or a hacker has built from source
> it seems like winecfg should be invoked when a new prefix is created
> rather than prompting for the download. Maybe for the general usage
> case we should do it anyway. Alternatively, if we are going to have
> this hook in here to satisfy this dependency during prefix creation
> due to packagers not following a required guideline, maybe a little
> public ridicule will force them to fix the package. Something along
> the lines of 'your version of wine does not contain the gecko package,
> please contact the package maintainer and inform them about this
> issue' or something and let it proceed to download at least.
>   

Well, I hope that a side effect of installation during wineprefix 
creation is that it will force packagers to package gecko <g> The brutal 
true is that we had a very bad situation for a long time. I can see 
three types of Wine users:

- regular users
They use Wine packages that should guarantee presence of Gecko (as Wine 
dependency or in Wine package, depends on packagers preferences). The 
current situation will probably force packagers to do the right thing <g>

- Wine developers
I'm surprised how many developers are affected by this change. It means 
that developers were not aware of the right way to install Gecko 
(probably because winetricks is too good :-) ). I'm sure it will change now.

- Users who compile Wine themselves
Well... the information about proper Gecko installation is easy to find 
and it's pointed on every wineprefix creation. They should survive as 
long as they read what's .

Given that, I think this change will force changes that will allow us to 
forget about the problem soon.


Jacek