Re: Goal for GNOME Mobile?

[Paul Cooper <pgc linux intel com>]

On Mon, 2008-11-10 at 10:46 +0200, Quim Gil wrote:
> 
> ext David Lefty Schlesinger wrote:
> > Peter Robinson wrote:
> >> What about collaboration with something like LiMo so that there's less
> >> need to expand into kernel space or reinvent the wheel?
> > This is certainly something we should be exploring (and I'm bugging the
> > LiMo folks to do likewise from the other side). I'd strongly discourage
> > the notion that GNOME Mobile should represent a complete solution for
> > several reasons: it's duplicative--lots of activity going on in this
> > space that GNOME should support rather than compete with; it's
> > unrealistic--there's no domain expertise in critical areas like
> > telephony, etc.; it's insufficiently focused--we should concentrate on
> > getting the existing GNOME technologies, particularly things like GTK,
> > working optimally on ARM before we start looking at adding more stuff...
> 
> Indeed, down to the kernel sounds like too much to handle.
> 
> However, what about the relevant parts of the freedesktop.org "layer"?
> GStreamer, Telepathy, Clutter and many more, totally relevant in the
> mobile context.
> 
> "This is not GNOME", many said in the past and nowadays.

But for GStreamer and Telepathy we identify them as part of the GM
platform, how are we saying they're not part of GNOME? BTW Clutter isn't
part of freedesktop.org.

> I wonder how good this is for the GNOME PPRR, identity and even survival
> in the long term.
> 
> These technologies and even the idea of freedesktop.org were born around
> GNOME, their individual maintainers have a clear GNOME background and
> even involvement, the companies pushing them are in the GNOME context.
> If I want to find all of them I just need to go to GUADEC. However, in
> the public space and in the minds of IT analysts and decision-makers,
> none of these provide awareness or karma points to GNOME.

Really? Looking at the gnome.org/mobile diagram it seems to me that it's
only sqlite, bluez, and pehaps avahi that the GNOME project can't take
credit for.

> Note also that these IT people will look at GNOME also in comparison
> with Qt (as they did in the desktop, only that in the mobile context
> nowadays all numbers and headlines are potentially bigger, see for
> instance  http://trolltech.com/about/news/qt-for-s60-announced ). This
> comparison is unfair to GTK+ since the Qt API covers a wider
> functionality that in the GNOME world is covered... by components under
> the freedesktop.org umbrella. In some cases Qt will use the very same
> components with a GNOME-ish DNA, wrapped by Qt and looking all Qt to
> those IT guys.
> 
> So again, how good is the "This is not GNOME" reductionism for the GNOME
> project.
> 
> At the end we go again to the need of defining what is GNOME and what is
> its vision.
> 
> GTK+ is essential to the GNOME project but, is it the cornerstone to
> sustain the whole building? In the desktop years it was, and this is why
> "This is not GNOME" was a clear assumption: you can run GStreamer,
> Telepathy and etc with other GUI toolkits on top, they are not dependent
> on GTK+, therefore they are not GNOME.

Are you suggesting we should somehow make gstreamer, telepathy, etc
dependent on GTK+? I can't see how that would be good for either.

> Is this the best strategy to fulfill the GNOME vision in the mobile
> context and the forthcoming years, though? But what is the GNOME vision,
> again? You see the trap.
> 
> PS: All the above takes in consideration only the marketing side. On
> more practical things, many of these freedesktop.org projects really
> need help (people, money, attention - see for instance the crucial
> D-Bus) and in the meantime the GNOME umbrella starts looking
> over-covered by corporate backing, specially if the scope keeps being
> the strict desktop with all its legacy.

What does 'over-covered by corporate backing' mean?

Paul


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