A slighlty different proposal. Having taken a closer look at Gem, and specifically pix_ processing, I do completely understand that Johannes wants to change everything in there. There is no way around introducing bugs in this process.
In order to make this transition less painfull, we could make a stable branch of Gem, which will only change for bugfixes, build system enhancements etc (no new features !!).
This means of course that there will be no yuv support.
Is there a need for such a branch ?
Interesting proposition Guenter. Maybe a stable and 'experimental' branch could help ease transitions in code additions. Another idea might be to have a 'Core' Gem version that's cross-platform with extra extensions to accommodate differences and unique features for each OS. That might alleviate some of our problems. The counterpoint is that it would mean more work for administrators and potential confusion for users. Some thing to think about...
cgc
Guenter