Re: Rare slashdot insight

[Jon Trowbridge <trow ximian com>]

On Sat, 2001-09-29 at 02:21, Richard Hestilow wrote:
> This would seem to correlate somewhat with the gal situation -- discuss
> amongst yourselves. 

Of course, there are plenty of options available in the gal sitaution
that aren't present in the MS-Office-widgets scenario, due to the nature
of free software:

* It isn't like there is a law of physics that keeps people from using
  gal.  It may be inconvenient in some cases, but you can still use
  the library.

* If there is a widget you want in gal, you can always cut & paste
  it into your own code.  Or you can use the gal implementation as
  a guide on how to do it yourself.

* If you want to influence the direction of gal, start hacking on gal!
  Or just talk to the gal maintainers.  Gal may be a fast-moving library
  with breakage between versions, etc., but anything that happens with
  gal is being done by well-intentioned people with allegedly rational
  reasons for doing it.

The old gnome-libs is in itself an argument for why libraries like gal
and eel are important.

-JT