Re: GNOME 1.4 extra apps coordinators

[Ian Peters <itp helixcode com>]

On Sun, Oct 22, 2000 at 01:56:55PM +0800, Gregory Leblanc wrote:
> > I'm not sure what to do about the GNOME applets situation -- we
> > currently ship a large number of applets in the GNOME applets package,
> > and I think Maciej is write that some of these should be broken out.
> > 
> > However, if we are going to ship extra applets, I'm definitely against
> > shipping them in one large bunch called gnome-applets-extra.  Ship
> > them individually, so that users can choose which to install.
> > 
> > Regarding games -- I'm also the GNOME games maintainer, and I think
> > that we currently ship more than enough small, simple games in the
> > gnome-games package.  If additional games have been written and are
> > ready to be released, they can, individually, be part of the extra
> > apps release.
> 
> Ian, sorry about this not having an attribution line for you, but
> Evolution doesn't seem to think that's necessary (I'll go bugzilla in a
> minute).

An attribution line?

> I'm all for the GNOME "core" releases to be for applications that are
> necessary for just about every user of the GNOME desktop.  As
> gnome-applets and gnome-games are part of this GNOME "core", they should
> be a brief set of almost universally useful applets, and perhaps the
> "most popular" games.  It should be feasible to have other "sets" of
> GNOME games and applets that are released about the same time as the
> "core" of GNOME, but these would basically just be a list of a set of
> individual packages, or a "meta" package for those who are using Debian.
> While I'm at it, I'd like to see the software map done in a similar
> fasion, as the current categories suck.  Why not break them up the way
> that they appear on the main menu, or by some criteria with less
> overlap?  I know this isn't a 1.4 issue, but it goes along with some of
> the issues that have been raised here.  While I'm at it,  selecting
> applications is going to become part of the duties of the GNOME
> foundation's board, if I read that correctly.  I'd like to see the
> discussions remain open, and on dedicated lists like this one, so that
> all parties can have their say.  

Of course the discussions should remain open.

(BTW: I believe that it will be the board's role to select people to
coordinate the release, much the same way the current steercom has
selected Jacob and Maciej to coordinate the core release, and Jamin
and myself to work on the extra apps release.  It will not be the
board proper that is doing this work.)

For my opinion, I believe that assembling meta-packages, grouping
things together, etc. should be the domain of the distributions and
vendors.  As you say, Debian already implements a fine solution -- for
example, if you install gnome-games on a Debian system, it is actually
a meta-package which pulls in things like gnome-iagno,
gnome-same-gnome, gnome-gnibbles, etc.

However, I don't see that approach making sense for the extra apps
release.  The way I see my role, it is to help coordinate the authors
of GNOME applications that are not considered part of the core, so
that when GNOME 1.4 comes out, we can point people to a list on a web
page or an ftp server and say, "Here are a bunch of apps that have
been released and will work well with your GNOME 1.4 system."

-- 
Ian Peters
itp helixcode com