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

[Andrew Sobala <aes gnome org>]

On Wed, 2003-05-07 at 15:51, Damien Sandras wrote:
> > 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
> 
> Netmeeting was widely used until servers get polluted by sex and porn
> entries which gave a bad reputation to Netmeeting. People prefered to
> use other H.323 software or directly H.323 hardware at least in
> companies, while normal people had a bad vision of Netmeeting. 

I didn't know that. I think quite a few people I know - happily using
AIM, Yahoo IM etc. on a day-to-day basis - would say "What's
netmeeting?" if I asked them. Lack of user-base to communicate with, you
see.

> > 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.
> > 
> 
> It seems you never tried GnomeMeeting either.
> 

No. I don't have a microphone and nobody I know uses audio-type chat.
That's the point.

> > 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.
> 
> There is no point for me to make my best complying to the HIG and to
> force non-GNOME users to install the GNOME libraries in order to run
> GnomeMeeting if GnomeMeeting remains one of the few applications to stay
> in 5th Toe while other applications are going in the core.

That's _exactly_ the argument against putting it in the core. Is there
something wrong with GnomeMeeting staying in 5th toe if most other
applications with a similarly-sized user percentage do _not_ go in the
core?

> I can also
> achieve the same level of functionnality without depending on GNOME at
> all.

Go for it, then. External dependencies are bad if you've got better
stuff internally to use.

-- 
Andrew Sobala <aes gnome org>

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