Improving Fifth Toe

[Christian Rose <menthos gnome org>]

fre 2003-05-30 klockan 09.19 skrev Murray Cumming Comneon com:
> But I seem to have missed Iain's point anyway, though I would really like to
> know what he's suggesting. I have the same concerns about the Desktop
> release getting too big, but nobody has found a way to define it clearly
> yet. I do think 5th Toe should be taken more seriously so that we can show
> our appreciation of extra modules without putting them in Desktop. I'm not
> sure how to do that.

I'm sure Fifth Toe would be taken more seriously as an official GNOME
release if:

* The Fifth Toe website was hosted on gnome.org. Why on earth isn't it?

* The Fifth Toe website had some even remote similarities with other
gnome.org pages. Currently, I see none.

* There was a detailed explanation of what Fifth Toe is and isn't on the
Fifth Toe website. Currently, that information is close to zero (one
sentence hidden somewhere). For example, mentioning that it is a
collection of useful GNOME software and not exclusively a staging area
for inclusion in core GNOME would help solve a common misunderstanding.

* There was a detailed explanation of inclusion criteria and what other
guidelines apply for candidate software. While I certainly don't believe
there should be as stringent criteria used as for inclusion in GNOME
core, I certainly believe there should be some criteria listed, if only
to give some confidence that it isn't just a random bunch of software
submitted, and that it has passed some level of suitability test.
One example of such criteria could be that the application needs to use
GNOME technologies. That's certainly not a very strict requirement, but
if listed it could give some level of confidence that not just any
application belongs here.
One example of a voluntary guideline could be that it's helpful if the
application does use GNOME resources such as GNOME cvs and GNOME
Bugzilla, to aid accessibility, usability, documentation, translation,
and QA efforts. While it certainly shouldn't be a requirement, it might
make a suitable guideline. So would also recommending the use of the HIG
be.

* There was some publically posted and coherent description of all
packages and information on why they have been included. Currently,
information about the packages seems to only be provided by the
submitters and is more often than not very lacking. Also, the grounds
for inclusion would be good to know, besides "someone submitted this".
I.e. a motivation of "the Foo application is one of the best frobnicator
applications available for GNOME, and it meets our other criteria and
most of our guidelines, therefore it's part of Fifth Toe" would be
better than "someone submitted this" or nothing at all. Currently, the
list of applications to an outside observer does look quite random
without any motivation.

* There was some fifth-toe-list gnome org, where things like this and
the inclusion of packages in Fifth Toe could be discussed.


Christian