Re: Focusing on innovation re: mono, python et al

[Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net>]

Hi, David!

I already wrote I agree with Lluis that the success of a desktop is
driven by a diverse and large set of applications. I've also seen many
people say Mono is a nice platfrom to build apps on. I can't judge this
due to not being a developer but I have no reason to mis-trust these
statements.

You're right that the majority of user don't care about the language an
application is written in. However, you miss one point: Linux users do
care because they were taught to do so. ;-)

When you are required to install dependencies, required to know what a
compiler is, and several other things, you do start to care about the
language and the development platform! And: Yes! You are required to
know about this stuff because OS application developers unfortunately
don't care about making proper binaries that run on many distributions.
And not even Debian offers packages for all applications. ;-)

You say many people run Mono applications already. So, what would change
if Mono becomes a dependency in the desktop release? Nothing, it
seems. It would be just a sort of approvement. If Mono would really need
it for market success, that's wouldn't be a good sign. Don't you agree?

You asked why should any user want to de-install an application.
Indeed, the harddisk space is no reason to do so but my _attention
space_ is much more restricted. I don't like Totem so there's no reason
for it to waste space in my (right-click) menus and my attention. For
this reason, I de-installed Totem; and Nautilus started to get a
hick-up when using the right-click menu on media files.

You also said, nobody is going to de-install a rocking application.
You're right but please understand that there's no such thing as a
rocking application for _everybody_! Totem might rock for most people --
I don't like it. You probably love F-Spot -- I don't need it. You may
like Rhythmbox -- I don't use it.

And this is a good thing! Because this is what a desktop is for: That
we don't need different desktops just because we don't agree on certain
applications!

You wrote, you're going to stop using GNOME if Mono's not included. But
why should you do that?

 * You want to use C# and Mono: You can do so.
 * You want to use something like MonoDevelop: You can do so, too.
 * You want ISVs to be able to use Mono: They can do so right now!
 * You want GNOME's blessing for GTK#: It could be included in the
   platform release.

The only disadvantage is that an application like Tomboy or Beagle
would not be able to enter the desktop release. Tomboy's nice but
including it won't be a major selling point for GNOME. Beagle might be
a selling point but there seems to be an alternative option (IMHO, the
search stuff is over-hyped, anyway, but that's just me). And apps like
F-Spot don't need to be included by default.

It would be a completely different discussion if we were talking about
Topaz but we are not -- I mean: hopefully we not otherwise I missed an
important piece of the debate. ;-)  And we're not talking about certain
application suites, as proposed by Dave Neary. I believe nobody would
mind if you want to use Mono for one of these projects.

There's enought demand for cool applications, and enought room to use
Mono, C# and GTK#. But according to what you wrote, there's C# just one
way to use Mono and it needs the GNOME desktop release to depend on it.
Why not the killer-application for Wannabe-Quentin-Tarantinos?

So: Yes! We need more applications! But not more of those that we could
include in the desktop, and certainly no more editors or audio players.
We need applications that can stand on their own, that could sell
themselves on gnomefiles.org and freshmeat.org! Something as useful as
GIMP or Inkscape.

Instead of fighing over a non-issue -- depending on Mono won't make
GNOME something completely different that everybody wants to have
suddenly --, we should think about a way to let users install
application more easily, IHMO. Because that's the major restriction on
marketing applications on Linux right now: They don't spread because
users can't install them! And I don't seem to be the only one: 

Havoc Pennington wrote: "... RPM and dpkg are not designed for
third-party software, and the diversity of Linux distributions makes it
even harder. The whole Linux ecosystem is set up assuming a single
giant pool of built-from-source packages. Which has many advantages,
but easiness for ISVs is not one of them."

However, that's a different discussion. :-)

So: Using Mono for Topaz or applications is not a problem. Making the
desktop release depend on it, however, is one. IMHO as a user, of
course. :-)


Cheers,
Claus

P.S.: Accusing me of using GNOME because I hate Microsoft wasn't
polite, really.