Re: galeon

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Hi,

On Mon, May 19, 2003 at 11:26:10AM -0500, Philip Langdale wrote: 
> It has been disturbing how little is known about galeon by the
> people who discuss it here and will eventually be making the
> decision about adoption. I did ask havoc to actually take a look
> at the program which he apparently did, though he only summarised
> his findings. Details on what he didn't like or what could be
> improved would be very much appreciated; and that goes for
> everybody.

I don't think we want to get into detailed discussion of each and
every browser feature and how it should work on this mailing list,
that's all.

The specifics from me are fairly predictable, anyway, I'm sure.
 
> There is certainly a perception amongst some that galeon 1.3.x is
> somehow galeon 1.2.x but simply ported to the gnome2 platform.

fwiw, I don't think that's the perception. My perception is that
galeon 1.3.x and epiphany are largely the same codebase, though they
are growing apart more and more over time.

> Though we are more and more disillusioned these days, we do believe
> that we've produced something that can be a consistent part of the GNOME
> desktop and a useful tool for users. If nothing else, we'd like to see
> our work condemned from an informed position.

I don't think the issue here is misinformation, or superficial
disagreement. It's a genuine disagreement.

You think your way is right (having all the 1.2.x features, exposing
technical terminology in the UI, having "advanced users only"
workarounds for problems, etc.) and are willing to defend that
approach and advocate that GNOME use it. The Epiphany maintainers
think their way is right (I would describe their way as building
rationale for each feature from scratch, considering the 99%-of-users
case as primary, sometimes with temporary regressions as the
price). As far as "outsiders" can tell the reason Epiphany/Galeon
split is this difference of opinion.

In general, GNOME has been doing things the "epiphany way."  And aside
from theoretical approaches, I would say that concretely the current
Epiphany browser is more in line with the rest of GNOME.

Now, you might argue that GNOME should change, and that's a fair
conversation to have. (Though also one that's already been had a lot
of times.)

But given the current direction of GNOME, I don't understand the
argument for including Galeon.

You use the word "condemned" - if Epiphany is included rather than
Galeon, the decision there is simply that Epiphany is more closely
aligned with GNOME. It's not a value judgment on Galeon, the word
"condemn" is not accurate.

The decision here is not unique to Epiphany/Galeon; for many other
modules, such as the window manager, a decision has been made on the
same principles. It doesn't mean that other window managers are
condemned.

Why would you want to be included in GNOME if you have fundamental
disagreements with GNOME's direction? It's just a recipe for everyone
involved to be unhappy. It doesn't make sense to me.

Havoc