Re: Draining the Swamp: A Technical User's Experience

[Jim Gettys <Jim Gettys compaq com>]

Richard,

The issue is that Gnome ***by itself*** *cannot* solve the configuration
swamp, no matter what you call the aggregate system.

The problem can only be solved by a bunch of projects working together
to solve the problems all of us have made, or at best we are pumping
water (and other things) from one place to the other in the swamp.

For example, right now we have the font morass (actively being drained),
where font configuration goes on in at least 5 or 6 places.

Then there is the mime-type swamp, where it gets configured in a similar
number of places (gnome, kde, /etc/mime* pluggerrc, mozilla, Apache,
etc...)

Then there is the documentation mire: man, info, docbook, html, scrollkeeper,
(...), etc.

And there are more.... A developing swamp is the definition of embeddable
objects (graphics plugins).  We have bonobo, kparts, netscape/mozilla
plugins, to name three sets.

And so on.

Each of these swamps needs serious draining. This swamp is not of
natural creation, but one formed by the people. You have personally
contributed to making the swamp, as have I.  Lets work together to
reclaim good ground, and drain most of all of the swamp.

For GNU, *BSD, X, Linux, Apache, Bind, Sendmail, Samba,
etc. to truly revolutionize the world, the different projects *must*
begin to work together to solve them, independent
of other considerations.  *NO* single project can solve these problems.
It will require serious technical work (between projects), serious
political work (between projects), cooperation (betweeen projects)
and yes, at times, compromises.

So please get off your hobby horse and help unite the free/open source
communities on this topic; everything that divides us makes proprietary software stronger no matter what we call ourselves.

                                - Jim Gettys
--
Jim Gettys
Cambridge Research Laboratory
Compaq Computer Corporation (until Tuesday, when it becomes HP)
Jim Gettys Compaq com