Re: So what's the plan?

[Maciej Stachowiak <mstachow mit edu>]

cls@seawood.org writes:
> 
> Is there a "white-paper" of sorts that explains exactly what the planned
> "released" gnome desktop will be and include?  I've gone thru the web site
> and read about the Style Guide, the plans for CORBA, about VFS, the
> software map and the ideas that are being thrown around for apps to
> include.  But things that I (and others I'm sure) would like know are:
>    
> When will a stable end-user version projected to be out, ie 1.0? 
>    (6 mons? 1yr?)
> 
> What will this release contain? 
>    Standard gnome framework (ie, CORBA, VFS, Sound System, file manager,
> 	desktop configurator, themes, panel, dnd)
>    Office suite (WP, spreadsheet, presentation pkg, database, money mgr)
>    Games (...)
> 

This is just my personal opinion, so take it with a grain of salt, but
I tend to view the major office suite type applications you mention as
somehwat separate goals from Gnome per se. I tend to think of Gnome as
the set of libraries, basic tools and utilities that make up the
general desktop environment. I'd think of major end-user apps that
work with this desktop as separate but closely related projects that
should have their own release cycles. I don't know how others feel
about this, though.

> The impression I have is that you want to give a standard look-n-feel for
> any current (and future) applications.  
> 
> Does this mean that there will be at least one GNOME version of each type
> of application available?  
> 

I think everyone hopes this will happen. It's not clear to me wether
this is considered a requirement for Gnome 1.0 - I'd personally not
consider it a requirement. Those apps are big enough to need their
own release schedules and development cycles.

> Can anyone just throw together a gtk app making it conform to the Style
> guide with all of the proper gnome specific features and be expected to be
> included as part of the GNOME desktop?
> 

That depends on what you mean. It's definitely entitled to call itself
a Gnome app in that case, Wether it will be shipped with the gnome
packages themselves is up to the maintainers, but the current policy
seems to be that just about anything that seems useful can go in.

> There is already a list of things that people are currently working on
> and a couple of hints of projects to come (GPresent?), but what are the
> _required_ applications that need to be available before GNOME will be
> considered "successful"?  Successful in this context meaning that it
> includes all of the applications needed for a standard end-user desktop.
> 

I think there's different levels and interpretations of success. A
completely free, consitent, user-friendly and beginner-friendly
desktop, even without a full suite of major apps, would be a big
success in itself. 

If it also had a full-featured set of apps avaiilable, including a
word processor, a spreadsheet, a presentation package, a database
interface, a money manager, a raster graphics package, a vector
graphics package, a desktop publishing program, and a nice set of web,
netnews and e-mail clients, with good integration between them all,
that would be an even bigger success - a lot of people would have no
excuse not to stop using proprietary software then. Many of the apps
on that list are in development already.

 - Maciej