RE: [GnomeMeeting-list] 2.4 Proposed Modules - GnomeMeeting

[Andrew Sobala <aes gnome org>]

On Wed, 2003-05-07 at 12:54, Murray Cumming Comneon com wrote:
> > From: Damien Sandras [mailto:dsandras seconix com] 
> > Le mer 07/05/2003 à 13:15, Murray Cumming Comneon com a écrit :
> > > 
> > > I think that's a decision for distros. I don't see how 
> > adding GnomeMeeting
> > > to our official Desktop release set would change anything. 
> > It's hard to draw
> > > a fine line, but I think _something_ must not belong in the 
> > main Desktop
> > > release.
> > > 
> > 
> > That is a vision of things, but you cannot reject 
> > GnomeMeeting for that
> > reason without having defined what is the desktop and what is not the
> > desktop release.
> 
> It would be nice to define it, yes.
> 
> > If something like gnumeric can't be included in the
> > desktop release, then the desktop release shouldn't include any e-mail
> > client or web browser either.
> 
> I don't think it should include an e-mail client. The best arguments for
> including a web browser is that people really do use one all the time and
> that it needs to work closely with the rest of the Desktop in ways that
> Mozilla does not. I'm not personally convinced that means it needs to be
> part of the Desktop release set, but the consensus seems to say it will.

This is offtopic, but I don't agree. E-mail is many people's killer-app
and gets almost as much use as a web browser. (It could be argued that
spreadsheets are many people's killer-app, but the e-mail many is a much
bigger many than that :-)

What people want to do with their lives is communicate. Hence e-mail,
IM, online diaries, text messages, etc. But the communication has to be
convenient and the protocol ubiquitous, not just technically, but also
socially.

When MS first bundled netmeeting, they were trying to increase use as it
was _not_ widely used. Is it widely used now? I don't think so, in
non-business use. People generally use IM. Why? Possibly simply due to
marketing, possibly because people don't want to set up their soundcard
microphone, possibly because it doesn't have any advantages over IM when
you consider the lags involved in sending voice over the internet.

I'd vote 5th toe until more people actually use it.

[...]
> > 
> > I took the decision to create a GNOME application instead of 
> > a pure GTK
> > application. Some people argue that it is limiting the diffusion of
> > GnomeMeeting, because of the numerous dependancies. But 
> > GnomeMeeting was
> > part of my vision of the desktop of the future, that is why 
> > I've done my
> > best to integrate it well in GNOME, and now I realize I'm perhaps the
> > only one to have that vision of a coherent, unified and powerful (in
> > terms of tasks) desktop.

GnomeMeeting, you say, is integrated with GNOME. If that's the case, our
libraries are good enough that it will be just as integrated whether it
is distributed with GNOME or not. We don't need to bundle everything in
order to have a powerful desktop.

You get gconf and instant-apply preferences. You get a weird tray icon
on the panel. You get method-abstracted file access. And that's the
technology behind a powerful desktop, and what makes GnomeMeeting
powerful if it uses it. Not bundling.

-- 
Andrew Sobala <aes gnome org>

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