Re: who gets in and why, aka the GNOME Desktop inclusion criteria

[Eric Baudais <baudais kkpsi org>]

While I feel you have a good set of standards for the GNOME desktop to
live up to I believe you have left out one of the most important
requirements.  I think all GNOME desktop applications need to have good
documentation.  This means the documentation uses the tools provided by
the GDP to display and install the documentation.  The documentation
follows the GNOME Documentation Style Guide and the GNOME Handbook of
Writing Documentation.  The documentation is a11y compliant.  Good
documentation is key to usability and educating newbies about the GNOME
desktop and Free Software.

Eric Baudais

On Mon, 2002-08-26 at 19:53, Luis Villa wrote:
> After much discussion[1] these are the standards the release team
> believes we should be using to judge requests for future additions to
> the GNOME Desktop.
> 
> Like the rest of you, we want a GNOME Desktop that is a complete,
> modern, asskicking desktop- a complete set of high quality, integrated,
> Free applications that provide at least the functionality included in
> equivalent modern proprietary desktops. Hopefully, these criteria will
> help us figure out what applications we'll mix and match to get that
> ass-kicking desktop.
> 
> It should be understood that, like everything else the release team
> does, the assessment of these criteria will not be in a vacuum- the
> advice of the usability team will be actively sought for usability
> assessments, accessibility team for a11y assessments, etc. The final
> call, though, will rest in the hands of the release team. 
> 
> On that note, the proposed criteria:
> 
> *improves overall desktop usability: 
> 
> New applications should make the GNOME Desktop a more useful place to
> hack, work, and play in. That might include, for example, better feature
> parity with other desktops, cool new things other desktops don't have,
> feature upgrades from older GNOME versions, or better opportunities for
> integration with other GNOME applications. The goal is not to include
> every gtk2 application available, but to include the highest quality
> applications that will make us competitive with the functionality of
> other modern desktops, and which offer a stable platform for improvement
> and integration going forward.
>  
> *developer attitude: 
> 
> the lead hackers of new modules have to be willing to work with other
> teams, including UI, a11y, etc. We want to have a community committed to
> working /together/ towards building the best possible desktop- where
> best is not just 'coolest' and 'most powerful' but also 'most usable'
> and 'most accessible.' That definitely means flexibility and compromise
> are important, both for maintainers and team members- everyone has got
> to be willing to work to find ways to make this /fun/ and easy for
> everyone else.
> 
> *GNOME-ness: 
> 
> Apps must use gtk2 and other GNOME2 technologies, and have a GNOME look
> and feel. Deprecated parts of the platform (like gnome-config) have to
> be avoided, in favor of GNOME2 technologies (like gconf.) Glade should
> be used whenever possible to aid in a11y and i18n work. The GNOME2
> porting guide [ http://developer.gnome.org/dotplan/porting/ ] has more
> details on making an app a GNOME2 app.
> 
> *Free-ness: 
> 
> While it is perfectly possible to write non-Free apps that fulfill
> basically all of these requirements, apps must be under a Free or Open
> license and support open standards and protocols. Support of proprietary
> protocols and closed standards is of course part of the world we live
> in, but all applications that support closed protocols should also
> support open equivalents where those exist, and should default to those
> if at all possible while still serving their intended purpose.
> 
> 
> The following criteria must also be met before the app ships as part of
> the desktop (but obviously aren't intended to be met when an app is
> first proposed as part of the platform):
> 
> *quality: 
> 
> The app has basically no repeatable/repeated known crashers. Major
> features/buttons/options/etc. work or are removed. The developers
> are working to fix other bugs at a reasonable rate.
> 
> *UI: 
> 
> the hackers should cooperate as much as possible with the UI team to
> improve the general usability of the app. This might be expected to
> minimally include (but is certainly not limited to) UI issues like GNOME
> look and feel, HIG compliance, careful choice of default settings, and
> clean interface design. [HIG is at
> http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/ ]
> 
> *a11y: 
> 
> The app is compliant with a11y documentation to as great an extent as
> possible, and the maintainers have made good faith efforts to fix all
> a11y bugs filed in a timely manner by the a11y team. [Note that if a11y
> docs are incomplete or not ready in a timely manner, this requirement is
> obviously moot. The Release Team does not expect hackers to become
> experts on topics outside of their domain- only to respect and act on
> the knowledge of those who are experts.]
> 
> *i18n: 
> 
> all text is i18n-ized. [We use 'all' here because it is easy to get
> right and we get extensive testing of this issue.] In addition, all
> reasonable steps have been taken to localize other parts of the
> application that might be region-dependent, like temperatures, times,
> etc.
> 
> *using GNOME resources: 
> 
> if the app isn't in GNOME CVS, there had better be a damn good reason :)
> Possible good reasons include (but not limited to) library with intents
> towards usage by both GNOME and KDE and concerns with the speed of GNOME
> anoncvs. Using other GNOME resources, like GNOME ftp and
> bugzilla.gnome.org, is also encouraged.
> 
> Anyway, so, that's what we're thinking :) hope it clarifies things a
> bit. Comments and thoughts, as always, welcome.
> 
> Luis, on behalf of release team
> 
> [1]mostly with pants on
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