RE: gtk + ALP

["Jesse Donaldson" <Jesse Donaldson palmsource com>]

Hi everyone,

Wow, you don't waste any time, I just saw the press release myself!
Anyways, I am one of the architects for this new framework.  I've been lurking on this list for a little while now, and I can try to answer some of your questions.  Some things are probably confidential, but I'll be as open as I can about everything else.  Obligatory disclaimer: Please note that I am *not* an official PalmSource spokesperson, so please don't expect that.  If I start getting quoted in the press or anything, someone might tell me to stop talking.

As for whether MAX will run on X or Direct FB, I believe the internal debate continues.  :-)  We're investigating both, and see some advantages on either side.  Many folks seem to be assuming that it will not run on X, mostly due to performance concerns, but I haven't seen the numbers from the people investigating that.  Also, the demo at 3GSM *does* run on X, for what that's worth.  I'd be curious to hear what you folks think about the matter.  As an aside, the press release said "an optimized implementation" of GTK+, but we don't really know what "optimized" means yet.  We've mostly been running GTK on desktop machines while the X & DFB folks do their various investigations.

For my part, I'd really like to participate in the GTK+ development community, and to do this with its support.  My own goals are to make sure that anything we build on top of GTK+ is done in a manner that is consistent with it, and that any modifications we make are able to be accepted into the official distribution (see "optimized" above).  One thing I would like to know is what you folks think of all this, and whether you are interested in making GTK+ the basis of a handheld applications platform.  That's certainly our plan, but some changes might be necessary to get it working well on a handheld, and I don't know if you would be interested in taking them unless they were really needed on the desktop as well.  I'd certainly like to work in harmony with the main distribution, but we could also consider working with a separate project like GPE if you are really focused on the desktop.  I should probably also warn you that our schedule is quite short, and that may limit the degree of our cooperation at times.  We'll do the best we can, though.

In case you're wondering about me, I'm a software engineer living in California in the US.  I've been working on various flavors of Palm OS for nearly 8 years now, and have always loved working on frameworks best.  That said, I am new to GTK+, and have relatively little experience on Linux as well (I'm a long time Mac guy).  So if I seem naïve, please don't assume that I'm stupid, and feel free to help educate me if you are so inclined. :-)


Regards,
Jesse 

-----Original Message-----
From: gtk-devel-list-bounces gnome org [mailto:gtk-devel-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of Mathieu Lacage
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 3:32 AM
To: gtk
Subject: gtk + ALP

hi,

I recently stumbled upon:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4663700447.html which outlines the ALP platform. A GTK+/gstreamer stack is included in it and I see no X server. I assume this means that they plan to either port GTK+ to this platform's low-level APIs or use an existing technology such a DFB and
GTK+/DFB. Is there someone who has heard about this and who would be
allowed to confirm my guesses ?

regards,
Mathieu
-- 

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