Re: Issuing a press release about GNOME 3

[Olav Vitters <olav bkor dhs org>]

On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 03:40:35PM +0200, Dave Neary wrote:
> So, release team, opinions? I understand that Luis's rant (sorry Luis)
> may have been deflating, but I'm giving a lightning presentation on the

I was not at home, and vuntz is busy. Not sure about others.

> State of GNOME at OSCon next week, and the 3.0 thing is bound to come up
> - I'd *really* like to be able to say something along the lines of "2
> years between major releases, 6 month between incremental releases, and
> we've started the first cycle of that already - the release team is
> working with maintainers & community to plan the major arc of features
> for 3.0".

I'd like minimal stuff for 3.0 really -- I think otherwise too much will
change, causing too much grief for users (too big a change = not ported
apps = angry users).

> Can I say that and not be telling a lie?

Suggest to focus more on the change in development than the 3.0 bit.

> PS. I'm still unclear about what opening the big tent means exactly -
> does it mean having a number of criteria, and any application meeting
> those criteria becomes part of GNOME? Does that imply abandoning the
> release sets?

Yes, this is nothing really new. I heard Federico already thought about
it for a while. The details are very hard, however, yeah.. it would
abandon the release sets.

IMO it would still need some exceptions. Letting apps be more free is
ok, but e.g. gnome-panel should be minimal.

The change would also ease which GNOME are accepted. No more 'what
programming language is this written in?'. Although it should be guided
somewhat (gnome-panel + giving suggestions that a Python program isn't
likely to be installed by default by a distro).

Note that the result makes a more 'undefined' GNOME. You cannot just say
GNOME are these apps. It is more a collections of apps that might do the
same thing (music player) but in a different programming language or
complexity.

-- 
Regards,
Olav