Re: About The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initative

["Quim Gil" <qgil gnome org>]

Hi,

On 4/21/07, Thilo Pfennig <thilopfennig foresightlinux org> wrote:
> a) I do not like that this was not discussed at all in the marketing
> list. Such major things and announcement have to be discussed with at
> least the marketing team

As discussed in foundation-list, it was an initiative that needed
certain confidentiality, while marketing-list is public. At least
Jeff, Dave and Murray had been involved since the very beginning, and
they are regular participants in this list. I don't see the problem
here.

> b) I fear that this is in fact a movement away from the desktop
> platform. I would rahther have suggested to found a new organisation
> to do this because mobile devices are not really desktops.

Well, the organizations actually working on GNOME in mobile devices
think that it's not a movement away, but a convergence needed. Look
the components we are talking about and you will see that most of them
are part of the very official GNOME release for the desktop, without a
single extra patch or fork..

> c) In relation to that i fear that this binds ressources that
> otherwise would have been there for the core desktop.

Mmm in fact the mobile space has brought a lot of extra resources to
the GNOME project already. Only OLPC and maemo have made big
contributions in terms of code, stabilization of components and new
functionality.

> I know - many things are now developed for embedded devices already
> and I also think that his is nice and cool but this truely is a whole
> different issue. We even did not manage to get our web site updated in
> time, wether for GNOME 2.18 nor 2.18.1 - so still many core tasks are
> not solved and yet we are going into new directions without further
> consultation of the marketing team.

No relation between the people working on the wgo revamp andthe
organizations supporting the launch of GMAE. Or do you see a link?
Please explain.


> I would like to know how this decision was made and why. And if you
> really think that GNOME can really develop two platforms (mostly
> standard desktop and embedded). I dont think so. And to me it looks
> like GNOME changes direction.

To me it looks like GNOME is following the directions that computers
are evolving. You argument sounds like if few years ago GNOME should
have not invested in power management optimization or wireless
connectivity since GNOME was thought for the traditional desktop, and
those features are relevant to laptops and therefore something
deviating from the original project.

If you have a look at the hardware capabilities and even the software
components and applications/services available for UMPCs, tablets and
smartphones you will see little differences with laptops (the current
ones or from n years ago). Screen resolution and form factor is
sometimes really different. They also might have touchscreen... but
tablet PCs too. For many components of the GMAE platform this is
almost irrelevant, they are common with the official stack.

> PS: At least we should discuss now what this really means for us now.
> And what it means for marketing GNOME.

Here I agree with you completely.

--
Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org