Re: Some points about IM integration

[Ma Xiaojun <damage3025 gmail com>]

Hi, all.

Let me summarize the concerns of Chinese community:

GNOME is integrating ibus. This may prohibit the possibility of using
other IM frameworks/servers. Worse, this may lead to an unusable
release of GNOME.

And ibus sucks. Because:
1. Some engines are written in Python therefore slow by nature.
2. Chinese mode stuff can be tricky for Traditional Chinese users.
https://github.com/acevery/ibus-table/issues/9
3. gcin/hime is more close to Windows's default input methods for
Traditional Chinese.
4. Various reasons show that fcitx is superior to ibus for Simplified
Chinese user. For example, ibus-pinyin lags.

And ibus is not well maintained. An evidence can be a long list of open issues.
http://code.google.com/p/ibus/issues/list

Many people believe that recent ibus releases are just fixing bugs and
there won't be new fancy features in ibus any more.
In the mean time, fcitx is actively developing fancy features.
https://www.csslayer.info/wordpress/

Though we may be 100% sure that alternatives like fcitx is definitely
better. Integrating something that is known to be sucks and not
future-proof is counterproductive and meaningless. Experienced Linux
users are used to the ups and downs of various IM frameworks/servers
so they do value freedom of choosing IM frameworks/servers.

Last but not least, ibus and fcitx are not mutual exclusive in runtime
since there is Kimpanel. We can switch between fcitx-pinyin and
ibus-pinyin dynamically. So the UI/UX improvement of integration is
kind of trivial.

Please correct me.

But why don't people help improving ibus?

Because people believe that Weng Xuetian and his friends are among
very few FOSS people that master input methods stuff. Reporting issues
to ibus doesn't work.
And they are developing fcitx.
The same should apply to the maintainers of gcin/hime.
And people don't believe GNOME project members can actually help the
development of input methods stuff. Even if ibus is "upgraded" to a
GNOME project. The situation is the same.

We all know it's engine rather than framework matters. But it's not
Windows where ISVs actively developing apps on cryptic APIs. IMF
maintainers also try their best to produce excellent engines. If Weng
released a new fancy engine that is naturally only available in fcitx.
Then people want to switch framework.

When I say "believe". I mean there may not be strong evidence. But
that is the image among users. I support any actions that can make
things better. But things are quite tricky this time.

Best Regards,
Ma Xiaojun