RE: Gnome Packaging

[Murray Cumming Comneon com]

> On Sun, 2003-12-07 at 02:17, Murray Cumming Comneon com wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> Ergo the distros would include everything irrespective of how 
> things are packaged.

Yes, we hope they will package everything (everything that is part of GNOME)
because they have the same aims. So, yes, packaging is irrelevant to distros
and users.
 
> > 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've just read it a fair bit since the proposal to include 
> Evolution was announced.  Some people like lean, mean 
> machines.  This type of applicaiton association would cater 
> more to them I guess.

Personally, I don't care about those people. "Keeping my machine lean and
mean" is not a goal that I think any representative user cares about.
 
> Another benefit of such a devolution would be that authority 
> can be easily delegated based on each group.  I could ramble 
> on about what that means for quite some time, but the crux is 
> that the formal relationships give a little more organisation 
> to the whole Gnome structure, thus it is easier to manage.

Yes. But we already have Gnome Office, don't we. It just needs to get with
the programme. It seems to be getting better recently. Still, I don't see a
release schedule.

> > I do personally think it's worthwhile to have a separate 
> release set 
> > for big things like Office
> 
> But is Evolution an Office application or a base desktop 
> application?  
> If Evolution and it's groupware functionality is present, 
> then surely a suitable word processor should be present?  
> Wash, rinse, repeat...

Again, 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.
 
> The inclusion of Evolution is treading on some unsteady 
> semantic ground!  A simple bit of devolution would solve that 
> and introduce some more structure to Gnome.  Whether extra 
> structure is needed or not, well, maybe it isn't now but in 
> the future?  Who knows. :)

People are only bothered about these things when they think it means
something that it doesn't. If Gnome Office is a well organised and scheduled
release set, then whether Evolution is in Desktop or Office makes simply no
difference for the user or the developer.

Murray Cumming
www.murrayc.com
murrayc usa net