Re: GNOME Development Series Snapshot 2.3.0: "Mighty Atom"

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>]

On Mon, 2003-04-14 at 19:02, Alan Johnson wrote:
> > In principle, I would agree - but then File Roller comes to mind. Its
> > GNOME-integration level is doubtful and its HIG compliance doesn't exist.
> > Yet it was included with 2.2 to finally offer archiving functionality in
> > the desktop. I fail to see why IM is less important than archiving and
> > hence postponing it to 2.6.
> > 
> 
> I think it is taking a fairly large step to say that IM capability is of
> equal or greater importance than archiving.  We currently distribute
> packages as archives, and as such, archival is of fairly large
> importance in daily use on the desktop.

Eh.  I don't know any desktop users who archive stuff, unless you mean
"putting on the file server."  Using packages as an example of a good
reason to have the archiver is fairly silly, too, since unpacking the
package is more or less useless, unless you also open a terminal and
compile it.  Using packages as an example, an automatic software
configurator/builder/installer would be tons more useful than a generic
archive manager...

Importance is all relative.  ~,^

OTOH, I don't think GAIM should be part of the core Desktop release,
either.  There should be an Applications release or something (like
fifth toe), but it needs to be a *release*.  Just saying, "oh, here's
some apps you can get, they're gnomish, have fun" isn't nearly the same
as saying, "Here's GNOME Applications Pack releae 2.4.0!  It includes a
Web Browser, IM client, Archive Manager, Dish Washer, and Dog Walker. 
This release is endorsed by the GNOME Team and intended for use with the
GNOME Desktop 2.4.0 release."  Getting the apps within to constrain to
the GNOME release guides and rules, etc.

Clean separation between the Desktop (which yes, has applications) and
the meaty user Applications.  Of course, defining that separation is the
hard part... ~,^

I recall that GNOME 2.0 was going to have something like this, but if
there ever was such a release, I never saw any announcements or
information on it, save a directory on an FTP server... :(

> 
> In addition, the size, installation time, and utility of FileRoller make
> it a more obvious candidate than GAIM for inclusion in the desktop
> release.  
> 
> And, I would even emphasize my previous point by saying if File Roller
> does not completely satisfy our requirements for release it should not
> be included, but I don't really feel that this is the case.
> 
> Yours,
> Alan
-- 
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