Re: Discussion: 2.2 Proposed Modules List

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

So,

My comments to get the discussion going - note that these are entirely my
own opinion, and not necessarily representative of what the release team
thinks. :-)

>   - acme: Daemon and configuration utility for 'special' keys on modern
>     multimedia keyboards and notebooks.

acme rocks, I use it on my iBook and desktop machine. But, shouldn't these
features be in metacity? Hard to say, given that acme includes weird
hardware support, etc. Two keybindings configurators seems a bit redundant,
and I'm not sure we should be adding modules that we intend to integrate
later on.

Bastien, what are your plans/wishes for acme?

>   - file-roller: Archive creation, browsing, and unpacking utility.

I think file-roller will be useful even when Nautilus/gnome-vfs have proper,
functioning archive creation/inspection support. Paolo has done a sterling
job getting it HIG-compliant and stable - I think it should go in.

>   - galeon: Web browser. Depends on Mozilla.

Marco has done an incredible job porting Galeon to the GNOME 2.x platform,
but has unfortunately decided to give up maintainership. This puts Galeon in
a precarious position for 2.2, but work continues, and the other developers
appear to be interested in working on it further. Will probably require some
input from them (philipl, ric, etc).

>   - gcalctool: Scientific calculator. Proposed to replace gnome-calculator.

Do we need an advanced calculator in our desktop release? I'm not convinced
that gcalctool is as cool as our current one, despite its preference for
correct floating point answers. :-)

>   - ggv: PDF and PostScript viewer.

Could do with some UI review love, but definitely worth getting back into
the Desktop release.

>   - gnome-icon-theme: Default GNOME icon theme.

I reckon this should be in gnome-themes, or at worst libgnomeui. Ahem. ;-)
We need this so our default icons don't look like arse.

>   - gnome-media: Not a new module, but noted here because the latest branch
>     depends on GStreamer.

Thanks to Iain, the sound recorder is looking *waaay* cool. Needs a bit of
UI review love, but hey -> IT WORKS! GStreamer requirement is controversial.

>   - gnome-themes: Package of default themes for GNOME, including GTK+ and
>     icon themes designed for accessibility.

These rock, and finally having a package for "official" GNOME artwork and
themes is a very good thing.

>   - gnomemeeting: Video and audio conferencing client based on h323. Depends
>     on pwlib and openh323, which are available at gnomemeeting.org.

Very kickarse app, but, given my experience with GARNOME, I know how hard it
is to build the dependencies. Aside from those quibbles, should this be in
our desktop release? Given its special-interest nature, perhaps it would be
more appropriate in Fifth Toe for the time being.

>   - gstreamer/gst-plugins: Multimedia framework libraries.
> 
>   - gst-player: Media player. Depends on GStreamer.

Lots of issues to discuss here. I definitely support GStreamer in the
desktop release (and in future, in the developer platform release), but
there's a bit of a question mark over it for 2.2 readiness. Need to talk it
through with the GStreamer guys a bit.

>   - metacity: Window manager. Proposed to replace Sawfish as default window
>     manager.

Not sure there will be much controversy over this one - we had hoped to go
with metacity for GNOME 2.0.x, but it wasn't ready. Now it is, and most
distributors are shipping it as the default. Not much question in my mind.

>   - nautilus-media: Multimedia support for Nautilus, including replacement
>     music view and video thumbnailing. Depends on GStreamer.

GStreamer. Controversial. ;-) nautilus-media is very cool, though.

>   - startup-notification: A minimal library that supports the new startup
>     notification spec from freedesktop.org.

Already supported in libwnck and metacity.

>   - vte: Terminal widget with improved font, internationalisation and
>     accessibility support. Designed to replace libzvt.

We get better font, a11y and i18n support, and make a fairly hefty sacrifice
in performance and fresh new bugs. If they're solvable in the 2.2 timeframe,
it's worth it.

- Jeff

-- 
    "From my observation, when it comes to porting Linux to a particular    
           device, a point doesn't appear to be necessary." - mpt