RE: GNOME Nirvana; How to reach it and what to do once we get the re. (Addendum)

[Andrew Sobala <aes gnome org>]

On Fri, 2003-06-13 at 07:03, Murray Cumming Comneon com wrote:
> > From: Wayne Schuller [mailto:k_wayne linuxpower org] 
> > Rather than officially "release" the apps for the platform,
> > we should be trying to create a more "fluid" environment where we
> > support and promote the apps that make best use of the Gnome platform.
> 
> All of this seems to ignore the issue of release management. Development
> needs to be coordinated. People need to know what they should work on.
> 
> I'm repeating myself. People who are not maintainers do not seem to
> understand how the GNOME release process works, or why it is necessary. The
> release team are currently trying to document it more so people can see that
> there's more to being part of GNOME Desktop than being a name on a list.

Here's an idea, then. I'm not advocating this, but it might be worth
discussion.

Have Iain's apps.gnome.org, which is equivalent to 5th toe. Do the
review-and-rate-every-six-months thing. The feet could be something like
this:

1 foot - Fully functional, HIGgy.
2 feet - (not sure)
3 feet - (not sure)
4 feet - No repetitively-reported bugs. Been subject to a ui-review and
acted upon advice given. Documented.
5 feet - 4 feet, plus: Uses existing standards to integrate with all
relevant apps and the GNOME desktop (especially for the
email-browser-IM-conference type apps, but this doesn't just apply to
them). Where (and only where) such standards don't exist but integration
is needed, create them.

We rate the applications 2 months before a GNOME desktop release (where
GNOME desktop only consists of panel, nautilus, control center etc.). We
define a release set consisting only of 5-feet applications that are
willing to be part of the "GNOME certified applications" (or something)
release. To be in it, the maintainer also has to agree to freezes and so
on; generally be everything in Luis' requirements GEP.

So if we have 2 great super-duper web browsers, both freezing when they
need to and integrating well with e-mail, IM/GNOME Meeting and so on,
great: the user has choice. We're only really talking about users who
download their own apps anyway; everyone else will use what the
distribution decide on (and they can choose epiphany over galeon or vice
versa if they wish to).

Thoughts?

-- 
Andrew Sobala <aes gnome org>

"We made GNOME-VFS support smb: and nfs: URIs. And we made OOo support
GNOME-VFS. Booyakasha!" -- nat