Re: Proposal: Workrave

[Andrew Sobala <aes gnome org>]

Hi Raymond,

On Wed, 2003-04-30 at 13:45, Raymond Penners wrote:
> First of all: thanks Reinout, for starting this thread. I have been 
> wondering for some time now what it would take to get Workrave into 
> GNOME CVS, but I never really bothered to ask. Note that I am not 
> proposing to make Workrave a standard part of the GNOME desktop. (Err, 
> note that I am not objecting either :-)

It does involve some commitments. These are things like paying attention
to the usability and accessibility teams, and sticking to the freeze
policies when coming up to a release (at least on a branch if not on
head). If you want to propose Workrave, you would have to stick to
these.

> We currently have a CVS repository over at Sourceforge, and host our own 
> bugzilla there. I am not sure what the advantages are of migrating our 
> stuff to {cvs,bugzilla}.gnome.org. I have been told that it would make 
> life easier for the i18n team to keep translations up-to-date. Also, 
> Workrave is (amongst other ports) a fully integrated GNOME app. Most 
> other GNOME apps appear to be in cvs.gnome.org, so why not Workrave?

It also makes QA harder if everything has to be downloaded from
different places.

> We would like to migrate if:
> - we can import our bugzilla database (including all history) into 
> bugzilla.gnome.org

This can be done; if you decide to migrate, talk it over with
bugmaster gnome org (this is a list with the bugzilla techs on it).

> - we can import our CVS repository (including all history) into 
> cvs.gnome.org

Can be done. The CVS techs are at accounts gnome org 

> - the GNOME CVS policy does not conflict with our needs. For example, 
> suppose someone volunteers to do a KDE or Mac port. Is it allowed for 
> this port to be checked into Workrave CVS (i.e. GNOME CVS) ?

Yup. Pretty much any Free code can go into GNOME CVS.

> About the Workrave/DrWright comparison: yes, Workrave offers quite a few 
> options, on some accounts, perhaps even too many. On the other hand, I 
> really do think DrWright offers too few.

Do you agree with the following documents?

http://www106.pair.com/rhp/free-software-ui.html
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/

If the usability team suggested ways of keeping the functionality of
workrave usable while removing preferences for it, what would your
reaction be?

> Soon Workrave will get even more 'bloated'. In the next release or so, 
> Workrave will include exercises: animated pictures showing you how to do 
> exercises that help in RSI recovery and prevention. From our point of 
> view, this kind of functionality is a must for a tool that claims to aid 
> in RSI prevention and recovery. Perhaps DrWright is more of a 
> pause/break tool than a RSI tool?

Functionality isn't bloat, functionality is good. The GNOME "minimalist"
view to user-interface design doesn't extend to functionality.

Our view is that the functionality of an application should be usable
without having thousands of preferences to configure it to work in
different ways.

> Anyway, to make a long story short, I cannot agree more with the 
> following quote from DrWright's web site: "[...]If you like whistles, 
> bells, and a thousand options, this [DrWright] is not for you. Feel free 
> to check out Workrave instead.[...]".

Hmmm. If you like a thousand options, GNOME 2 is not for you ;-)

-- 
Andrew Sobala <aes gnome org>

"A freudian slip is when you say one thing but you mean your mother." -- unknown