Re: Revisiting the Gnome Bindings

["Eugenia Loli-Queru" <eloli hotmail com>]

> I don't think it's fair to blame the Foundation for the lack
> of packaging since it's really not (just) a case of inadequate
> marketing.

No matter what is really to blame, it ultimately comes down to this 
scenario:

1. Most distros come with standard Gnome and no bindings, as the distro 
people never understood their value.
2. A distro's user needs to run a pygtk app (which as I mentioned earlier, 
pygtk is _very_ popular among devs)
3. User tries to find packages of pygtk or gnome-bindings for his distro.
4. User finds none.
5. User goes on to install the bindings manually.
6. User screws it up or have no idea how to set this up (common outcome).
7. The user never manages to use that app he saw on Freshmeat or on 
Gnomefiles.org
8. The developer of the app never gets the audience he always wanted, he 
loses interest on his app eventually.
9. User gets bitter from his Gnome experience, he blames the "Linux 
desktop".

At the end, everyone loses: the user, the distro, the developer of the app, 
Gnome, and that vague entity, called the "Linux desktop".

You might go all day about how this is not the Foundation's responsibility, 
but it is *someone*'s responsibility to promote the Gnome software. But if 
it's not the Foundation's responsibility to communicate the importance of 
the bindings (especially for pygtk), then I have no idea whose it is. It 
certainly ain't mine. I did my part, no matter if Murray didn't find it a 
sound communication method.

> If we started putting undue pressure on our distributors to comply with our 
> demands, they
> would not be so happy to distribute our software.

I don't bite this argument. Nobody said anything about "pressure", I talked 
about communication. I know that they are distro makers out there that have 
no clue about the importance of the bindings and the state of the Gnome 
third party applications that their users will be after. And the 
Foundation's job is to "educate" and "communicate" (according to its web 
page). I ask for nothing more.

Rgds,
Eugenia