Re: Goal for GNOME Mobile?

[Quim Gil <quim gil nokia com>]

ext Paul Cooper wrote:
>> "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?

Mmm you are right that the diagram says so. The "Technologies in
Incubation" include more freedesktop.org projects, also true.

However, if we go and ask to the GNOME community (including many
maintainers of those projects), what answers we would get? GStreamer,
Telepathy and such are out of GNOME for the average GNOME contributor.

Now, perhaps the
http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.24/#rnmobile released some
weeks ago indeed changes the situation and my worries are already part
of the past.


> BTW Clutter isn't part of freedesktop.org.

Yes, that was unaccurate from my side. Apologies. The example of Clutter
is still valid, though: a technology born in the GNOME context that
might or might not play together with GTK+.



>> 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.

See my following paragraph:

>> 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.

The trap of keeping the GNOME identity tied to a specific technology
(GTK+) as a best replacement for a lack of identity and vision (*). This
approach worked during the first decade of GNOME, I just wonder whether
it can be kept for the mobile decade.


(*) Benchmarks to test: can you explain GNOME without getting into the
details of its building blocks? Can you think of a GNOME based product
skipping GTK+?


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

An impressive list of corporate sponsors supporting a reasonably
structured and resourced GNOME Foundation, compared to the ad-hoc
reality of freedesktop.org and some of its critical projects. Maybe I'm
again wrong and freedesktop.org doesn't need additional help or
attention, but if so the GNOME Foundation would be an obvious channel to
support them.

Again comparing to the Desktop decade, on that time it was important to
extend the GNOME concept to the application layer making sure the main
features were covered: browser, email, etc. However, in the Mobile
decade applications become less of a problem since many parties seem
interested in providing them. The attention needs to turn more on the
inner layers, since the user experience and the success in fron of
androids and etc depends a lot more on solid, well maintained and
innovative building blocks.

-- 
Quim Gil
marketing manager, open source
Maemo Software @ Nokia