Re: Tomboy in Desktop

[David Nielsen <david lovesunix net>]

l�2 07 2006 kl. 02:33 +1000, skrev Jeff Waugh:
> <quote who="Jeff Waugh">
> 
> >  * Should we include Tomboy in the Desktop suite? (completely
> >    independently from the fact that it uses Gtk#/Mono)
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Here's my point of view, completely independent from the fact that Tomboy is
> built with Gtk#/Mono. Here it is in point form, because I seem to be doing
> pretty well with it:
> 
>  * Without a doubt, Tomboy is pure awesome.

No argument from me, Tomboy is nothing short of life changing.. praise
Alex!

>  * Alex says that Tomboy doesn't replace Sticky Notes, he doesn't really
>    want to migrate Sticky Notes data into Tomboy, and that Tomboy and Sticky
>    Notes suit different use cases.

We have a sticky notes application, wow, I haven't seen that exposed in
any distro I've used lately. I think it's unlikely that users actually
use this without having prior knowledge of it's existence.

>  * In my experience, users perceive Tomboy and Sticky Notes to fulfill the
>    same (or similar) function.

To me Tomboy is mostly like Post-it notes-NG, I guess that makes it like
sticky notes with the very useful twist that I can link them together. 

>  * We need a thrilling ecosystem of software that "Works With GNOME!"

What does this have to do with Tomboy specifically, for now "Works with
GNOME" seems to cover useful applications like Office suites,
Music/Photo management, etc - all of which we probably need to do
something about like the previously proposed tier system to give the
user a certainty that a given application will in fact integrate with
GNOME and use the data we expose where suitable - nothing is worse as a
user than to install an application and having to configure it by hand
because it somehow doesn't know about say e-d-s to get all your buddies
or whatever.

>  * We don't have to integrate *everything* into the Desktop suite. That was
>    never its purpose. The Desktop suite is all about the OOTB (out of the
>    box) desktop user experience.

Yes and the out of box experience is currently not including several
good and valid use cases like management of music and photos, office
productivity, Instant messaging. It does however have VoIP and Low level
system management this seems like a strange way of targeting a desktop
to me, that might not be the case of other people. 
Having a certified GNOME application project might work as a entry level
for GNOME.
If we don't integrate everything or provide such a project, then how do
we select what use cases cover the core of GNOME, in which case I guess
GNOME would be the base libraries and a set of specified services for
applications to hook up to.
The issue seems to be that we risk turning GNOME into a distro since
there's no such thing as a core desktop anymore (was there ever really?)
and either we provide an ever increasing set of use cases or we provide
a platform for vendors to hook into an have it all abide to the GNOME
rules.

>  * "Innovation" doesn't have to be jammed into the Desktop suite because we
>    haven't found anywhere else to put it. We have to curtail this idea that
>    the Desktop suite is the be-all and end-all of GNOME.

Nobody really uses GNOME, everyone uses GNOME + whatever your vendor
elects to fill the gaps with. Before we included Evolution everyone used
it anyways since distros shipped it with their version of GNOME. The
same goes for Rhythmbox and other services.

>  * If Alex wants to adopt the GNOME release cycle and strategy for Tomboy,
>    that's *fantastic*... but we can approach that differently.

Tomboy being largely feature complete and stable would need mostly
maintenance, this is up to Alex to sign on for though - Ekiga e.g.
doesn't follow the GNOME cycle religiously either so long as it works
with the desktop we ship and doesn't fall into an unmaintained state
Tomboy should be fine.

Following the cycle is mostly about:
* deploying bugfixes
* adopting platform changes
* adding required features  

And being sure that users actually get this supportable version of your
software in hand. 

>  * Let's give our users the ability to discover and cherish awesome third
>    party software for GNOME. If we suck the known universe into the Desktop
>    suite, our users won't be able to have that experience.

And if vendors don't take the time to package these or convince talented
users to do so, users won't have that experience either. Regardless my
bet is that 99% of all people would just stick with whatever comes with
their distro by default. That's the important target for applications
that are outside of GNOME CORE, not the desktop release as such. Get in
the vendor desktop or your chance of getting users decreases
dramatically.

>  * This is *not* meant to disenfranchise Tomboy or Alex, or make it seem as
>    if Tomboy is a 'second class citizen' - far from it. Tomboy can be one of
>    the first targets for us to fix that perception. "Be GNOME", not "Be in
>    GNOME".

Maybe we need to demote a whole lot of stuff instead, make GNOME just a
platform that exposes ways of exchanging information and a set of
guidelines for it's design (basically the HIG) - we could then provide a
reference platform that uses these services if needed. I guess that
kinda makes GNOME into freedesktop.org really but what is the middle
ground here, either we pick a set of core use cases to solve and let the
distros fill in the gaps or we fill them in. The less we set in stone in
terms of solutions, provided we spec out and provide functionality to
solve them, the more likely it is that the distros will converge on a
set of applications that will win out on excellence for the use cases
the distro selects, but everyone is equally able to hook in and replace
a given application.

-David Nielsen