Re: 3.8 "feature": Drop or Fix Fallback Mode

["Jasper St. Pierre" <jstpierre mecheye net>]

On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The discussion about features is supposed to heat up next week, but I'll
> actually be offline. So I'd like to start discussion on the fallback
> mode today.
>
> First of all, go read the wiki page:
>  https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode
>
> It more or less documents the current situation with the fallback mode.
> And I'm of the opinion that we can't accept this situation for 3.8
> anymore.
>
> So, the two alternatives I can think of are:
>
>  a) get more people to work on the fallback mode so that it has a high
>     enough quality and follows the current vision of the project
>
>  b) do not have a fallback mode anymore (or at least, not the current
>     one...)
>
> (if anyone can think of another option, please raise your voice)
>
> Please note that option b doesn't necessarily mean that all of the
> features present in GNOME for the fallback mode get dropped too (this
> would need to be discussed, and this is possibly up to each maintainer),
> nor that fallback modules suddenly stop to be maintained (although this
> might happen if nobody steps up). It's merely about stopping to endorse
> as offical the current fallback mode.
>
> It'd be useful to know to what extent people would be affected if we
> stop supporting the fallback mode. For instance, last June, Antoine
> mentioned that llvmpipe support is not there yet on OpenBSD...

We discussed this at the Boston Summit. At least two major community
members still use gnome-panel and metacity, simply because they liked
the workflow better than the GNOME 3 way of working. There were lots
of things that were discussed; some of these systems and complaints
are addressable for 3.8, and others are not. I don't want to misquote
or paraphrase the community members, so I'd have to re-ask them, or
they'd have to reply on list.

GNOME Shell Extensions were discussed for solving that problem, but
they ran into the upgrade problem: when a new version comes out, their
workflow depreciates for a few weeks while the extension community
members update to 3.8 themselves. There's also the very real fear of
being left in the dust. One solution we discussed was having a set of
core, popular "GNOME Shell Extensions" which would be updated along
with each GNOME 3. Another was shipping more GNOME 3 beta updates to
extension community members so they can update their extensions,
hopefully in time, because as was pointed out, our developer story is
lacking there.

> Again, before replying, go read the wiki page:
>   https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode

I promise I have.

> Cheers,
>
> Vincent
>
> --
> Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.
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-- 
  Jasper