Browser - [was 2.4 Proposed Modules - 2 weeks left]

[Murray Cumming Comneon com]

> Havoc said:
> >Jeff has said he isn't sure we should include a browser
> >in general, and that discussion hasn't really been had.

I don't think Jeff actually said that. (I think he said he likes the idea of
a GNOME browser but isn't sure if epiphany or galeon is ready to be that
browser.) But I did say it.

> Then I guess that discussion should be started :)

I think the only real reason for having a GNOME browser is the User
Interface. It would be nice to have something that was consistent with the
GNOME desktop (HIG and GNOME simplicity), and Mozilla explicitly does not
try to do this. I believe that will continue to be the case in future. It's
not as powerful a reason as before because Mozilla's UI will soon be much
better without the mail/irc/yadayada stuff bundled with it.

People have also mentioned the use of the GNOME mime-system. But I believe
that freedesktop.org will eventually provide some shared mime-system that
both GNOME and Mozilla can use too, so I don't think that's a reason anymore
for having our own browser.

I think UI-consistency is probably reason enough. But we should accept the
fact that, even if epiphany becomes our perfect GNOME browser, a lot of
GNOME users would continue to use Mozilla instead. And I don't think we will
ever try to tie it compulsorily into the desktop like MS did. With that
understood, I'm personally fairly happy to have epiphany in GNOME. And there
seems to be a good consenus for _a_ GNOME browser - people get upset at my
stupidity for even suggesting otherwise.

> What would be reason to include a text editor and a pdf 
> viewer but not a
> web browser ?

For me, it's probably a question of application complexity and the existence
of competing products. And trying to draw a line _somewhere_ between GNOME
utilities and 3rd-party apps.

Murray Cumming
murrayc usa net
www.murrayc.com