Re: Sorry State [Was: NLD10 and GNOME]

[Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>]

Le mercredi 08 f�ier 2006 �4:49 -0200, Evandro Fernandes Giovanini a
�it :
> I think the process used by Novell is very common in the GNOME community
> (and Free Software in general).
> 
> For example take metacity. Sawfish was the default window manager, so
> Havoc could have started a discussion
> "should-our-window-manager-be-like-this-instead". But he didn't; what he
> did was write metacity following the design he had in mind in a window
> manager. Metacity was included in GNOME because most people adopted it
> and agreed that Havoc's design was better for the default window
> manager. 

AFAIK, Havoc used CVS for metacity. Everybody could look at it.

> The menu layout we use today is another example. If people had gone on
> discussions about which is better - the foot or the "menu panel" -
> perhaps things would have gone nowhere. But someone wrote the "menu
> panel" and eventually it became the GNOME default.

There were discussions about the new layout, but they were not on
d-d-l ;-) It was also done in CVS, by one of the maintainer.

> Ubuntu has also done some changes in the panel, like the 'Add to Panel'
> dialog. From what I remember this was first done in Ubuntu and after a
> release using that configuration discussion started on the usability
> list.

The Ubuntu "Add to Panel" dialog was developed with input from a
gnome-panel maintainer (who wondered what result it would give).
Discussion on usability list occurred because the maintainer was not
sure the result was okay. (maintainer being me, in that case)

> Another example is the log out dialog on the right top corner of
> the screen in Dapper, which wasn't proposed for discussion on
> mail.gnome.org, it was just implemented there when GNOME uses the window
> selector for the top right corner.

AFAIK, the log out thing in dapper is just a simple applet. The real
change is in the gnome-session dialog. I'm not sure the gnome-session
maintainers were aware of this change, but I believe that at least Mark
wanted to move this functionality to the panel, so...

[...]

I'm not saying design by community works. But people working on the
modules that will be changed should have the possibility to know about
the change. Don't ignore them. Be nice.

Another solution is to just proclaim "we don't need maintainers any
more, everyone can do anything". Less work for me ;-) (but I'm not sure
this is a good solution).

Vincent

-- 
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