Re: Proposed: Rhythmbox

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs noisehavoc org>]

On 05Jan2004 04:29PM (+1100), Jeff Waugh wrote:
> <quote who="Maciej Stachowiak">
> 
> > All that being said, I have no specific opinion on Rhythmbox, having never
> > used it. But thinking of a music player/organizer as an optional add-on
> > seems deeply misguided to me.
> 
> Again, from a user perpective, it wouldn't be. Your first paragraphs were
> really on the ball. ;-)

One major purpose having a Gnome desktop release is to present an
informed opinion of what the user perspective should look like. Or at
least what its greatest common factor should be. 

Editorial decisions about the base set of user software are just as
important as usability decisions about individual pieces of
software. And it seems like the experts on desktop technology in the
free software world should make a first cut at these dicisions.

In fact, it seems like a bunch of software is already in the desktop
release for these kinds of reasons - someone thought they were part of
the expected basic set of desktop apps. For example, Epiphany, EOG,
GGV, gnome-games, gnome-media, gnome-meeting and gnome-system-monitor
and gnome-terminal. These all seem to be there mainly for reasons of
satisfying base user expectations rather than for integration or dependency
reasons.

Now, maybe you mean to argue that a music player/organizer is not part
of the base set of present-day user expectations. But I think that
would be a hard point to defend.


Regards,
Maciej