Re: gnome-panel & gnome-applets?

[Brian Cameron <brian cameron oracle com>]

Johannes:

> GNOME 2.x will not get any more official support after the 2.32.1 relase
> which already happened. Single module maintainers may decide (or have
> already decided/done) to do more 2.32.x release to fix various bugs but
> no more official releases are planned.
>
> This is not different from GNOME 2.30 for example. Distros that ship
> GNOME 2.30 (Ubuntu LTR for example) basically need to care themselves if
> they need to backport patches from newer releases of fix things
> themselves if it is specific to this GNOME release. GNOME never gave a
> promise to support any release any longer than 6 months.

Yes, I understand that is the current plan.  I was only trying to
suggest that plans could change if the community determines a real need
and if distros working together help to provide whatever resources would
be necessary.

> Despite that and this is what this thread is about, GNOME will maintain
> a non-3D user-experience in the future which will likely use some
> components of the GNOME 2.x stack but ported to GNOME 3 technologies (no
> parallel installation required). Until now, this experience seems to end
> up as metacity + gnome-panel + Applications. This is not a continuation
> of GNOME 2.x even if a lot of code might be shared.

As you say, this is likely what will happen and the current plan.
However, as you imply by saying "likely" it is hard to predict the
future.  At the very least, I see no harm in discussing options.  This
tendency to assert that plans cannot change seems to stifle discussion.

> Answering parts of your questions: Distros should ship GNOME 2.32.1 if
> they really want to continue shipping GNOME 2.

I do not think it is so much about distros "really wanting" to ship
GNOME 2.  It is more a fact that many distros currently deliver, or will
soon deliver, supported versions of GNOME 2.  Regardless of whether the
GNOME community provides any more official support after 2.32.1, distros
will continue to support their supported products.

Distros could work together in these efforts.  I see no reason why such
collaboration could not happen within the GNOME community.  Though,
since you seem to suggest that the GNOME community has already decided
that there will be no further support, I guess you may be saying that
such efforts would necessarily have to happen outside of the GNOME
community (whatever that means in a free software community).  To me it
seems odd to make such final decisions before determining if there is
any real interest, need, or if distros might be willing to make
resources available to make such efforts happen.  These are all
variables that probably will not be known until distros seriously
consider making the transition to supporting GNOME 3, which could be
many years away for some distros.

Brian