Re: metacity, vte

[Adrian Custer <acuster nature berkeley edu>]

> Hi,
> 
> We need to sort out metacity and vte soon.
> 
> What are people thinking on these topics?
> 
> Havoc


The question of "sorting out metacity" seems to involve several issues
none of which are spelled out in this post. I am also at a loss as to
who the "people" are whose opinions are relevant. 



Breaking apart the discussion I get two questions:

1) Does GNOME intend for the near future to support a single window
manager or allow the flexibility of several?

2) Does GNOME want to change from sawfish as the default to metacity?




Addressing 1) the issues seem to be:

a single window manager:
--is easy for new users
--does not require defining a standard of integration, a standard list
of features or any other standard for GNOME compliance
--concentrates developer attention

multiple window managers:
--allows user choice
--allows users to use a window manager which either "just works" for
them or one with the features they feel they need to be productive
--requires a GNOME wide definition of features which window managers
must implement to be GNOME compatible.

(The issue of how users get to a new window manager, I leave aside since
this seems to be a minor piece compared to publishing a definition of
GNOME compliance. Note that this standard would impose on the default
window manager a set of minimum requirements which may or may not be
supported by the module maintainer.)




Addressing 2) the issues seem to be:

for using metacity:
--many developers support it
--major distributions have decided to ship it as a default
--it ties into the menus in a specific way
--it has active development which sawfish seems to be lacking

for keeping sawfish:
--many users like one or several features which metacity will not
support. 


I am sure there are more issues and leave those to others to add in.
Also, I refrain from giving my opinion since I don't think that the
opinion of users is considered useful by those who will ultimately
decide on the issue.

-adrian