Re: The storage interface cleanup - incredible

[Michael Meeks <michael helixcode com>]

Hi Maciej,

On 21 Oct 2000, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> Dietmar Maurer <dietmar maurer-it com> writes:
> > Miguel de Icaza wrote:
> > I think there is a broad consensus that we need to change the
> > Storage interface, and eazel have to cope with that since
> > they are using a library (bonobo) that is not even released. Besides,
> > none of the eazel people denied that it is not much work to
> > make the changes.
> >
> > So please let me make the changes. They are necessary and it
> > is less work to make them now.

> Every change is potentially destabilizing

	For Nautilus to be both forward and backwards compatible with
the proposed change involves removing the following lines:

	        nautilus/components/adaptor/bonobo-stream-vfs.c

	        remove lines 211-265 282-285

        a huge patch no ? potentialy de-stabilizing ?

> But as it stands now, accepting one change feels like opening the
> floodgates to possibly many more.

	This is not the case, we are fully aware of Eazel's need to get
its file manager out, however we want to cripple the Bonobo platform as
little as possible in order to help you. It's no use saving 1 company some
pain now in order to mess up all future users. I have been working with
you for a long time now trying to assist you in every way possible to do
the right thing.

> So we are not going to say no to you, Dietmar. We will leave it up
> to Miguel and Michael to keep their own promises.

	Miguel gave an assurance of an API freeze to calm you down
and a date; well after that date was passed Eazel were sending patches
adding new features to the code. Consequently we might be forgiven for
assuming that Eazel had adopted a more reasonable position on the
technical merits of getting Bonobo right.

> P.S. Sorry if I included any Top Seekrit info in this post, but I
> don't think the obligations the Bonobo maintainers entered into
> should be a secret.

	The most interesting thing to me that came out of that call (
that neither of us was involved in ) was that Eazel admitted to trying
to "force" the Bonobo maintainers to do something that was in our view
both technicaly the wrong decision, and also not in the interests of
the Gnome 1.4 platform. [ to whit shipping with the old feature
incomplete, bug-riddled UI handler ].  Unfortuately I was on the
receiving end of a lot of this forcing the stresss of which was not
so good for me:

(	http://www.gnome.org/~michael/activity-to-2000-10.html
	date: 2000-09-23					)

	So; it seems that once again ( if you are representing the company
accurately Maciej, which I hope you are not ) Eazel is again trying to
force a technicaly awful decision into bonobo in order to avoid some (
totaly insignificant ) impact on their Nautilus product. In summary, it
begins to look as if Eazel care a lot more about shipping their product
than doing the right thing for Gnome.

	Regards,

		Michael.

-- 
 mmeeks gnu org  <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot