Thanks Jeff,
Thanks for your comments.
Some of the package programs out there are pretty old and ugly. Mandrake 9.0's Installer GUI is a prime example. It is still based on GTK1 (as far as I know) and is basically butt ugly. If you guys took the chance to unify package management into a single entity (i.e. distribution independant) it would move Linux forward as a desktop. Take the best out of the distibution package management tools (embrace). Unify and modify the code to a common easy to use user interface (extend). Then when the package is complete, create some buzz around the community and commercial companies (excite) that a unified gnome-based installer is available for general consumption and can be used as part of a distributions offering. Especially focus on the commercial companies because they need to have single reliable installer.
Again as I said before this is only a suggestion. I'm not trying to flame, but in my opinion there needs to be unified installer that is distribution independant and LSB compliant.
Craig
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Waugh [mailto:jdub perkypants org]
Sent: Thursday, 26 September, 2002 1:57 PM
To: Craig Williamson (ENZ)
Cc: desktop-devel-list gnome org
Subject: Re: Gnome 2.2 suggestions
<quote who="Craig Williamson (ENZ)">
> Is it possible for you guys to develop/hack a commercial non-GPL based API
> that can work with the Gnome libraries. I know this is totally against
> your philosophies, but it could be good to use in the future to entice
> commercial developers to come to Linux (Adobe, Macromedia, etc). What are
> your ideas on this. Maybe the Ximian or RedHat gods (I worship thee)
> could look at this one. It could be a good way to earn a bit of extra
> money and manna for you.
The GNOME Developer Platform is LGPL'ed. Proprietary software vendors can
(and do) write proprietary software on top of both GTK+ and GNOME. As
opposed to Qt, they can do it without purchasing licenses. That doesn't mean
that *every* proprietary software vendor will leap out of their skin to do
it, but they can.
> Secondly, a good package installer for Gnome. GnoRPM is alright for
> some users but for newbies it would be good to have an easy to use installer
> for the nervy first time user. This is also a problem with KDE that they
> haven't addressed.
This is generally regarded as a distribution issue. Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake,
Debian, etc., all have nice GUI package management software.
- Jeff
--
o/~ In spite of all those keystrokes, you're addicted to vim.
*ka-ching!* o/~