Defining Gnome Office

[Charles Goodwin <charlie xwt org>]

Gnome Office seems to lack any kind of definition.

To quote Alan Horkan (apologies in advance):

"Gnome Office [is] an informal grouping to help inform users."

This is well illustrated by the Gnome Office 1.0 release:
http://www.gnomedesktop.org/article.php?sid=1353

Only 3 applications were involved (AbiWord, Gnumeric, Gnome-DB), and 
none of it was handled through Gnome Office channels.

Also relevant is Alan's take on Eye of Gnome, gThumb, and Gammu:

"This is stretching the notion of Gnome-Office a whole lot."

I put it to you all that:

 o  Gnome Office should be a strong formal relationship between
    willing Gnome applications, representing a suite of applications
    that allow people to accomplish all their Office tasks in Gnome

 o  The Gnome Office portal should be a centre for educating people
    about Gnome Office, supporting the Gnome Office community and
    for collaboration of Gnome Office development

 o  Just as the Gnome project draws strength from bringing the
    development of several projects together into a structure where
    people and resources pooled to good effect

 o  Gnome Office should be about promoting the usage of member
    applications and encouraging their combined usage

As there are so many Gtk/Gnome applications that could fall under a 
broad 'office' definition, there should be a few levels of membership:

 o  Core: the core applications are the applications such as AbiWord,
    Gnumeric, and Gnome-DB (although I'm not sure what constitutes
    being a 'core' application other than momentum)

 o  Specific: non-core applications that are recognised as part of
    Gnome Office and as such promoted and supported

 o  Hibernating: previous Gnome Office member applications who have
    become inactive for whatever reason and are listed mainly for
    historical reference

 o  Candidates: potential members of Gnome Office who are not yet
    member applications due to whatever reason (eg unwillingness, or
    non-compliance, or unresponsive)

A set of criteria for Gnome Office membership should be drawn up.  Some 
thoughts on that would be things like basic HIG (although not strict 
HIG), and activity (at least trying to keep up with Gnome).

I'll try and put more though into this tomorrow - I'm about to lose my 
internet connection for the day.

- Charlie