New module decisions for 2.16

["Elijah Newren" <newren gmail com>]

(Executive summary: New modules chosen; scan to near the end to see them.)

Hi everyone,

The release team has completed its second meeting[1] to try to finish
the new module decisions.  And, after all the long threads on d-d-l
and the many discussions amongst ourselves trying to determine
community consensus, we finally have the decisions.

So, let's cut to the chase and present the most flamed issue.  :-)
gtk#/mono as a blessed dependency for admin or desktop modules is much
like evolution and epiphany/galeon from previous releases -- no choice
will make everyone happy.  In this case, it was reflected in the
release-team too -- we can't even make everyone in this smaller group
of people happy either.  But most of us agreed that the following
middle ground seems to be the best representation of community
consensus that we are able to find:

 New modules may be accepted into the desktop or admin releases with
 a dependency on gtk#/mono, but any modules accepted into either of
 those release sets without a dependency on gtk#/mono may not gain
 one without going through the proposal process again in a subsequent
 release.

There were lots of people strongly in favor of adoption of mono/gtk#,
and many people strongly against, but perhaps the biggest sticking
point appeared to come from the fact that the two sides saw a polar
opposite of possible outcomes. ("If you don't like gtk# apps, just
don't use them" vs "once gtk# is accepted into the desktop, everything
will gain dependencies on it and we won't be able to remove it") In
our meeting, most thought that the rule above would ensure a middle
ground and that the middle ground more closely reflects community
consensus than any other possible decision we are aware of.

So, with that issue out of the way, we can present the actual module
decisions, some of which actually weren't very difficult (yay for easy
decisions!)

 + orca
   => full support from the community, even from the gnopernicus
      maintainers
   => we have to encourage orca people to make the migration as smooth
      as possible (and they're willing to do so)
   => IN
   => it probably means we dump gnopernicus

 + alacarte
   => users like it
   => some distributions (will) ship it
   => gsimple-menu-editor is far too simple
   => no issue with this module
   => we need to patch the apps to make use of it (gnome-panel patch
      available)
   => IN

 + gnome-power-manager
   => positive consensus
   => IN

 + gtk# (bindings), gnome# (desktop)
   => positive consensus
   => strong concerns about wrapping of unstable API/ABI were
      previously brought up
   => agreement that Mike's recent split proposal[1] for resolving
      the unstable API/ABI wrapping issue sounds sane
   => disappointment expressed about gtk# bindings to gnome-vfs not
      being in the bindings suite, but the issue not considered a
      blocker
   => IN, if Mike's split goes through

 + Tomboy
   => positive consensus
   => some issue wrt duplication with and/or import from sticky notes,
      but migration code from sticky notes seems to be in place now
   => Jeff's previous proposals about alternative/additional release
      suites has support from some other r-t members, but general
      agreement is that these changes should be delayed (as well as
      possible splitting of the desktop?) until 2.18.  Discussion on
      these proposals should start soon-ish, though, perhaps even
      before 2.16.0 is out.
   => strong concerns about the dbus# bindings (John reports that
      neither he nor the original dbus# author, Joe Shaw, think that
      dbus-sharp was a particularly good binding and that it hasn't
      been updated since the 0.3x releases)
   => IN, assuming gtk# gets in AND a sane long term solution for
      dbus# is proposed soon (or that dbus# is removed as a
      dependency for Tomboy) -- otherwise kick it back out before
      2.16.0
   => Decisions about handling of sticky notes applet below

+ Sticky notes
  => mostly duplicates functionality of Tomboy
  => general agreement to deprecate sticky notes for now and remove
     it in a later release
  => 'deprecation' means hidden from the user and some kind of
     warning for those trying to use it

***************************************************************************
In summary:
 orca, alacarte, and gnome-power-manager:
   are in.
 gtk# and tomboy:
   are in, assuming the issues mentioned above are resolved.
 sticky notes:
   becomes deprecated, assuming tomboy issues are resolved and
   gets in.
***************************************************************************


We realize that this email won't be to everyone's liking.  If we could
have made decisions that would make everyone happy, we would do so.
However, we would like to thank everyone for their awesome work and
their much valued input.  There wouldn't be such hard decisions to
make if there weren't so many people who cared about GNOME so much.
You are truly an amazing community.  Now, let's make 2.16.0 rock!

Sincerely,
The GNOME release team




[1] Two meetings in a single release cycle!  What is the world coming
   to?  Anyway, for the curious:
   http://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2006-August/msg00001.html
[2] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2006-July/msg00709.html