Re: GNOME 2.0 Schedule

[Seth Nickell <snickell stanford edu>]

On Wed, 2001-10-10 at 08:06, Stephen Browne wrote:
> Just some thoughts on this schedule.
> 
> So we now have a schedule, we have a list of things that have been done so far
> and the status of libs in the 2.0 platform, but do we have any idea of what is
> left to
> do to make up a deliverable Gnome 2.0 user desktop?

We haven't precisely defined what a "deliverable" GNOME 2.0 User Desktop
would be, so I'm not sure we can make tight time estimates based on
that.

> Do we have any idea of the scope of work that still needs to be done?

The dates were largely determined based on the fairly well understood
magnitude of API changes (large in some areas, small in others), and an
educated guess at how long core components will take to port and
stabilize. We hope lots of non-core components will be done at the same
time, but as I said before, we haven't firmly determined what a
deliverable GNOME2 desktop will be. For example, will we ship with some
GNOME1 apps still included and have a second release later that is pure
GNOME2? Will we just remove some apps from the release until they are
ported? etc.

> Do we know how many people are going to be working on it?

Its hard to imagine fewer than are working on it now. So the ellusive
answer is "more, we hope".

> Do we have a commitment from module maintainers to do the port?

No.

> (I'm thinking about core things here like the control center,
> see recent mails on gnomecc-list)
> 
> I guess I just get the impression that things are still a little
> disorganised, not everyone is focusing on Gnome 2.0.

Unfortunately I think that is the case. I'd like to see a general
consensus from library maintainers (particularly GTK+, Bonobo, and
libgnome, which is what most people are depending on at this point) that
things are ready to port and that application porters starting now
aren't going to end up with quivvers of arrows in their backs as they
discover that every other function doesn't work as advertised ;-)

I suspect that if the libraries are in working order a number of module
maintainers could be easily convinced to start porting now. Also
remember that as long as we get people interested in porting their own
stuff the process isn't linear (e.g. people port in parallel). The
worrisome part is the important modules that will take longest (I think
that's probably either Nautilus or Gnome Core at this point, I think CC
should be relatively easy, its pretty simple UI-wise in comparison).

 
> I suppose the release co-ordinators must have the answers to
> these questions since the schedule should reflect them so I
> was wondering if they could share.

If only we did.

-Seth