RE: Gnome Packaging

[Murray Cumming Comneon com]

Charles Goodwin wrote:
[snip]
> I've started to wonder about the merits of breaking up the 
> Gnome desktop
> into subcategories, in a manner not dissimilar to the way the KDE
> project does things.  For example:
> 
> Gnome-Core: All the core Gnome libs
> Gnome-Tools: Nautilus, gnome-networking, gnome-system-tools, etc
> Gnome-Net: Epiphany, gFtp, etc
> Gnome-Comms: Evolution, Gaim, GnomeMeeting, etc
> Gnome-Media: Rhythmbox, Totem, gThumb, etc
> Gnome-Office: AbiWord, Gnumeric, Gnome-DB, etc
> 
> It would be a useful distinction for those that want Gnome but not
> all-things-Gnome:

Apart from debian users, who seem used to choosing their packages in boring
detail, I don't think this is likely to make much difference to most people.
We want GNOME to include everything that the user needs, and that's what the
distro wants as well. So I don't think most distros will even bother to ask
the user whether he really wants all the things that he's likely to need.
 
>  o  It would also be more difficult to criticize the inclusion of
>     things like Evolution in Gnome-Comms than it is for including
>     Evolution in the base Gnome desktop.
> 
>  o  It would be easier for people to cut out Evolution by only
>     selectively getting parts of Gnome-Comms than it would if
>     Evolution were integrated into Gnome as (I'm understanding)
>     is proposed.

Why would people want "cut out evolution". This suggests either
- There is a shortage of disk space. I don't think there is.
- We are forcing something on distros. I think distros do what they like.

I do personally think it's worthwhile to have a separate release set for big
things like Office, just because it makes organisation easier, without
making any difference to a user. If we accept that it's just for the sake of
release organisation then we don't need to worry that the boundaries will
always be vague. A user doesn't care whether evolution is a core/desktop
application or an office application - he just wants to read and write
emails.

Murray Cumming
www.murrayc.com
murrayc usa net