[Qt-interest] standard configure parameters for OSX commercialbinaries (4.4.3) ?

[Ross Bencina]

Thiago Macieira wrote:
>> So, if I run "make install", the frameworks won't be installed correctly?
>> (!) or just not the same as the dmg?
>
>It will be installed correctly, probably into 
>/usr/local/Trolltech/Qt-4.4.3.

How does this interact with the frameworks the commercial installer puts in 
(i think) /Library/Frameworks?

>It will not match the .dmg

In exactly what ways will it not match the .dmg?

> Our scripts do a few steps more, which configure && make install can't
> reproduce.

Ok, but are these steps documented? You mentioned otool, but is that the 
only thing? Do you understand my problem? At the moment I am unable to use a 
patched version of Qt-commercial on OSX because I have no way to build a 
version which matches the Trolltech binaries (and hence no way to do QA with 
guarantees that the only thing that has changed is the patch I've applied).

> A Mac binary package takes 2 hours to build, a Windows Visual-Studio build
> takes about 3, the MinGW package takes 5.

You don't have to tell me that, that's why I use the commercial binary 
packages :-)

Perhaps I should just forget binary releases on OSX, from what you are 
telling me they are more than useless if I need to patch something later. 
The fact that Trolltech supplies a patch is great (and what I expect from my 
commercial licence) the fact that I can't even compile Qt with the patch on 
OSX and get a direct-swappable replacement for the commercial binaries is 
unacceptable.

> We don't have the infrastructure for building packages for each customer,
> since the patches that we sometimes send are different.

How about releasing more regular maintenance releases with roll-ups of all 
fixes :-)


>> -- or perhaps even better, maintain a stable
>> branch with regular updates =) Stability, cosmetic appearance and bug 
>> fixes
>> are a lot more important to me than new features or speed.
>
>You're describing this branch:
>http://qt.gitorious.org/qt/qt/commits/4.5

A repository link is not what I have in mind. I want full QA-ed release 
packages, not a repo link. _Especially_ since I can't even build a 
release-package from source on OSX according to what you say above.


>Since 4.5 has been feature frozen since about October last year, there are 
>no
>new features in that branch. There have been a few performance improvements
>here and there, but only where the change was sure not to cause problems.

My point is not about feature freezing 4.5 its about _stabilising_ 4.4 (or 
4.5) before even thinking about shipping the next bunch of new features.

As far as I'm concerned 4.4 has never been stabilised and I doubt 4.5 is yet 
either (personally I can't afford to risk switching from what I know to what 
is completely unknown right now, since my release schedule runs in 18-32 
month cycles). 4.5 was released while there were still significant bugs in 
4.4.x which have never been fixed in a public 4.4.x release. Two examples: 
(1) the example you gave of QNetwork, (2) the patched version of 4.4.3 
commercial I use here fixes significant crashes in the paint engine on 
Win32. I'm sure there are others.

As far as I can see, Trolltech dumped 4.4.x as soon as 4.5.0 was released. 
There has not been a single 4.4.x release since 4.5.0 was released. 
Personally, what I expect is stable, regular packaged maintenance releases 
of 4.4.x say for at least a year after 4.5 is released, and _then_ 4.4.x can 
go into deep maintenance with only critical fixes. The current situation 
means I am forced to ship buggy versions of Qt to my customers and have to 
jump through hoops to try to even ship a patched build to Qt binaries on 
OSX.

But lets forget this -- I understand that Trolltech/Nokia have some other 
strange strategy other than to ship reliable, stable software to their 
commercial customers. The main thing I need to work out now is how to 
succesfully patch 4.4.3 on OSX as per my questions above.

Thanks!

Ross.