Re: New suites vs. common release cycle [Was: Productivity suite]

[Christian Rose <menthos gnome org>]

tis 2005-06-14 klockan 07:39 +1000 skrev Jeff Waugh:
> <quote who="Christian Rose">
> 
> > > See the last point in the list -> it would be part of the GNOME release,
> > > but not in the "official", viciously exclusive way we define it now.
> > 
> > If so, please make sure that there is a note in the release notes (I
> > assume there is going to be release notes for this) that abiword is not
> > supported by the GNOME Translation Project.  That way, we won't be
> > tricking our users into believing that abiword is a fully
> > supported/compliant application in every aspect, when in reality it is
> > not.
> 
> Yeah, if we have a really good per-module stats page in the release notes,
> we can make a section for projects that are not using GTP. :-)

We could then also continue with sections mentioning the applications in
(the extremely inclusive) GNOME that are not using the GDP, applications
in (the extremely inclusive) GNOME which are not following the HIG, a
section mentioning applications in (the extremely inclusive) GNOME that
are sticking with the old file selector, and so on.

Basically we have two options: either we have extremely inclusive
releases, allowing almost everything to be released as GNOME (making the
"GNOME" part mean basically nothing), or we keep a more strict
definition of the releases, making it less inclusive but on the other
hand more clear what standards GNOME is all about.

Judging from my own experience, not many users complain that each and
every application out there isn't released as part of GNOME. They don't
know what GNOME is; they basically just got their distro and whatever
applications it included by default. For these users, what we officially
include in GNOME and what we don't wouldn't change a thing, as they get
all the applications anyway as part of the distro.

But from the users that actually know what GNOME is, I have received
nothing but positive feedback in terms of how the user experience of
consistency and integration has improved through the latest releases.
So, at least to me it seems strange that we should intentionally start
going in the opposite direction, and as a consequence be diluting our
brand name (for those who know the difference) for no obvious reason.


Christian