Re: no external panels for gnome-control-center [was GNOME Feature Proposal: Backup]

[Luca Ferretti <lferrett gnome org>]

Il giorno ven, 13/05/2011 alle 12.16 +0200, Olav Vitters ha scritto:

> The control-center maintainers made a quick API for GNOME 3.0 only.
> Saying the removal is censorship?

Of course not a real world censorship, but something that resembles it.
System Settings is a place that can be useful to third parties and you
are "arbitrarily" choosing to "lock" it. You are preventing someone to
do something, not because it's not (technically) possible, but because
you (politically) don't want.

>  What about all the options that are not in the GNOME 3.0 control center?

Good question. 

For example all Power settings options currently available only through
dconf-editor or gsettings... With current approach (no extra panels) you
are going to kill the "free enterprise".

We have the official "Power" panel with few options and no one is
allowed to provide an additional "Extra Power" releasing a
gnome-control-center-extra-power-0.4-0.tar.gz package with controls for
hidden options. 

It seems the only allowed (but discouraged, if you don't plan to put
your stuff upstream) way is to fully patch gnome-control-center module.
This approach is only feasible if you are a distro maker.

We have a framework (i.e. system settings), but we don't allow people to
provide their own additions and improvements in a simple way. More, we
dislike their additions, because they don't fit in our desktop vision.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying an "Extra Power" is an actual improvement for
anyone or it should exist. Also I know gnome-tweak-tool is available.
The previous was just an example, not actual software.

>  What about our license?

This was never an issue to me. My concerns are about policies.

>  What about
> a maintainers decision and the goal of a project?

I've asked a similar (unanswered) question before: "who is in charge to
settle those _technical_ and _political_ sides of GNOME Desktop
development?"

Of course maintainers choose for their own modules. But IMHO this issue
is more related to GNOME as DE project then gnome-control-center as a
single module, 'cause it involves the core nature of GNOME Desktop as
place for third parts to develop their own solution.

> Your definition of censorship applies to everything that a maintainer
> does. Not applying a patch or implementing a feature would also be
> censorship.

Yes and no, IMHO there is a difference between "select the patch/feature
to apply/implement" and "force people to collaborate upstream"

See what's happening in main thread about deja-dup inclusion: now
Michael have to choose between kill his own beloved project and merge
with gnome-c-c or keep its identity and let it survive in GNOME as
second class citizen.

If we really want to promote this kind of policy (I've another emotional
word for it: cannibalization), well, sorry, I've to strongly disagree.

I prefer to have a little confusional System Settings dialog, in
exchange for cross-fertilisation between GNOME and external stuff.

> GNOME is now way more design orientated; could also call it decisions..
> or censorship. The latter has a strong emotional impression. I'd rather
> have people talk about the goal of GNOME without too much emotional
> implications.

Unfortunately we are not speaking about technical issues :(
So it's not simple to discuss putting away our own convictions on how
GNOME and FLOSS should be.

> Too much emotions only leads to heated arguments and
> people not listening to eachother anymore.

To be honest, I feel nobody replied on my own not-so-emotional points
and questions, such as:
      * gnome-shell is extensions friendly; if we want a full control on
        end users experience, then we should remove them too;
      * we are going to make gnome-c-c a "closed" place for non-upstream
        and non-distro vendors, and IMHO this is a failure from a market
        point of view (why should third parties choose to invest in a
        "dictatorial" software?)
      * should GNOME be a final product or a resource for distro? a
        resource to customize, of course
      * are we so much afraid about customizations? are customization
        the Evil? -- ok, this was a bonus and sarcastic question :)

Cheers, Luca