Re: [fOX] The Cathedral and the Bazaar

[Kendrick Vargas <kvarga01 fiu edu>]

On Sun, 8 Mar 1998, Michael Beurskens wrote:

> Kendrick Vargas wrote:
> > In any case, I was wondering if anyone
> > has started porting anything KDE over to Xclass?
> 
> It's harder than one may think, since the QT-framework is much more
> complete than XClass and also has a different structure...

You know... I've been thinking about alot of things lately... Take a ride
with me through my consciousnous....

Alot of desktop projects have been popping up lately.. KDE is the obvious
forerunner with a whole bunch of apps under it. I would position GNOME as
being next, with GTK behind it and GIMP... I think fOX is next in line...
Realistically speaking, we've got alot of work to do to catch up with the
other guys... 

Anyway, I read some of the GNOME stuff on the site and they spoke of
re-using much KDE code, etc... I think this might be effective for us as
well... The problem is, why would anyone want to maintain something like
the "same" game or whatnot for three different X11 ToolKits?

What I'm thinking is that, since we're all (as desktop projects) working
towards the same goal, why not try to create a framework within the
projects which allows for maximum reuse of the code. 

I mean... according to what I've read about the GPL, The Cathedral and the
Bazaar, and other source free publications, reuse of code is good and very
VERY central to the GNU and Linux communities. This is why I think my idea
would work. I think we could convince the other groups to join us, mostly
because we'd be wasting valuable time if we didn't.

Would it be possible to abstract an application far enough from it's
GUI Toolkit (as a shared lib maybe?) that someone could maybe write a
minimal interface for Toolkit A and a minimal interface with ToolKit B
that both use the same engine to do all the work? Am I making sense?

I'm pretty sure this would be kinda stupid to implement with the smaller
applications, like some of the games, etc... but with the larger
applications such as word processors, graphical manipulation programs,
etc... The applications that have alot of data manipulations behind the
scenes would be the biggest target. I figure also small applications that
would be used among all the projects would also be targets for this kind
of work.

I was wondering if it would make sense to get a couple of people from each
organization together to talk about setting these standards. Maybe form a
group such as The Open Project Standards (TOPS) group. I mean, what I've
seen so far that the biggest reason of exhistence for these projects is
for the advancement of Un*x/X11 as a viable graphical OS in the business
and home. Thus, the focus should be on developing the interface rather
than worrying about the application base. Otherwise, non of the upcoming
projects will take off. 

Now, it is true that you can run any app under X11 as long as the
libraries that it's bassed on are present. However, GNOME people wouldn't
be recycling these apps unless they had a reason, and the reason is this:

	The key to having a professional looking desktop is
	uniformity (as much as possible).

Not just uniformity in appearance, but uniformity in behavior. And since
all of these applications will undoubtedly be revised, it'd be a good
thing to be able to keep things as upgradeable among the various toolkit
dependent versions of the same app as possible. Otherwise, it wouldn't be
effective. 

I'm not just saying this because it would be advantageous for the fOX
project (even though it would be immensely so), but moreso because I want
to see a working graphical community about the GNU and Linux people.
Something that will persist throughout time and be recyclable and reusable
throughout time. Admittedly, this would also give any of these
applications a much longer life than they currently enjoy. 

And now that I'm thinking, would it be possible to write the actual
application so that it provides information on what menus/menu-entries it
needs, where/how to display them, and other GUI hints and have the ToolKit
handle the rest? Almost like a window manager for the GUI, not the
windows. Sorta like HTML in the sense that you provide the contents of
what's supposed to happen, but you leave it up to the individual browser
to fullfill those requirements. Thus, the user can specify their toolkit
of choice as an X11 Resource, and just run the application, all the rest
is taken care of. All you would have to do to create a new project is
create a toolkit that can address those indications and *BAM* you have a
sea of applications at your disposal. 

How feasible is this? I've a GNOME list and a KDE list so I hope this gets
to the right people...
			-peace

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