Hi wroot,
in most cases it is IMHO possible to ensure a largely backwards compatibility. Particularly dealing with protocolls is very importend to pay attention to.
The classic protocolls i.e. http, smtp, ftp ... are age-old, expanded with extended versions, but actual software still works with this fossils.
Only in a few cases backwards compatibility is really not possible without inhibiting the progress.
The point is, that many developer can't be bothered with such stuff, it's to inconvenient.
Here in this case I don't even think, this is a real backwards compatibility problem. I guess it's only a minor detail in spark-client. The transportet packets from smack-layer seems to be kosher, there is noch significant differences between 2.7.7 an 2.8.3. ... it must be only a small thing .... casting error or else.
Yes, we tested a few other IM-clients, some workes, some don't. But they don't meet our requirements. Sparc hit most the requirements.
And in new sparc there is a further feature implemented we are interested in. A pity.
cu,
Budgie