Re: Moduleset Reorganization -- Take two

[Matthias Clasen <matthias clasen gmail com>]

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 9:22 AM, Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org> wrote:

>> Where do you draw the line with some applications that should be part of
>> any desktop, like eog and evince?
>
> Right. That's the hard question :-) And that's an issue we have today:
> how do we define the desktop? Should it include a browser (we chose
> "yes" a few years ago), a video player (again, we chose "yes"), a IM
> client (we only chose "yes" recently), a music library (so far, we
> stayed with "no", but nearly all users use one).

I don't think thats quite the right question to ask.

Obviously, a complete desktop needs to provide a browser and a video
player and an IM client. But that does not mean that those are part of
the core desktop infrastructure. They are just essential applications
that no desktop can do without.

The right question to ask when deciding if something is an application
or part of the core are

- does it have an individual identity or branding (one indication here
is whether it uses a generic name or a branded name, think 'GNOME
character map' vs. 'gEdit')

- does it provide tightly integrated services througout the desktop
(e.g cd burning inside rhythmbox and nautilus) or is it a standalone
thing