Re: [DRAFT] Modulesets Reorganization

[Lucas Rocha <lucasr gnome org>]

Hi,

2010/5/23 Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>:
> Hi Lucas,
>
> Le vendredi 07 mai 2010, à 00:13 +0100, Lucas Rocha a écrit :
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Here's a first draft of the announcement of the reorganization of the
>> modulesets. I reused some of the wording from the r-t quarterly report whitten
>> by Vincent. We need to decide when the modulesets reorg is going to actually
>> take place. I'd say something like "The reorg will take place at some point
>> during the current development cycle". Comments are marked with "COMMENT"
>> inside the text.
>
> Did you have time to update your draft with what we discussed two or
> three weeks ago?

Yes, here's the new draft. The changes I made are:

- Improved wording here and there;
- Removed COMMENT bits;
- Added comment about Applications moduleset being dissolved in the long term;

Questions:
- Do we still want to merge Admin and Dev Tools into Applications moduleset?
- Any better name for the Platform Extras moduleset?
- Do we need to show the initial split of modules in some wiki page?

Comments are welcome.

--lucasr

-----------------------------------

Hi all,

The release team would like to propose some important changes in the way we
organize our modulesets. GNOME releases are currently organized into the
following modulesets: Desktop, Platform, Bindings, Mobile, Admin, and Dev
Tools. This model has served us well and has actually evolved through time - we
didn't have the Admin and Dev Tools modulesets initially. However, we feel that
this organization is reaching its limits, and we have explored several
potential changes.

Current issues
--------------

A set of issues makes it clear the need for an evolution here:

1. The arbitrary separation between Platform and Bindings can lead people to
think that the bindings are second-class citizens while this is certainly not
the case.

2. The Desktop moduleset has expanded so much that it's now unclear which type
of application should go in and which shouldn't; it's also forcing us to choose
one application over another, or to avoid any decision - like in the famous
Rhythmbox vs Banshee case.

3. We strongly believe that we should encourage a strong ecosystem of apps
around GNOME, and integrating all applications in the GNOME Desktop moduleset
is not the best way to achieve this.

4. Some libraries should be used by developers even if the API/ABI guarantees
are not as strong as our GNOME 2 Platform (e.g. GStreamer, e-d-s, and others).
Such libraries should be labeled as such, obviously.

Proposed (re)organization
-------------------------

With that said, the release team would like to propose the following
reorganization of the modulesets:

1. The Desktop moduleset will be split into two modulesets: Desktop and
Applications. Desktop will contain the components needed to get a desktop
session running and provide core functionalities (e.g. gdm, gnome-session,
gnome-settings-daemon, nautilus, etc). The Applications moduleset will contain
all approved apps that provide extra relevant features to the desktop (e.g.
gedit, totem, etc).

2. Bindings will be merged into the Platform moduleset and become first-class
citizens on the development Platform. The goal is to make the bindings more
prominent from a communication perspective.

3. Create a moduleset to hold our highly indicated libraries such GStreamer,
e-d-s, and others. This moduleset will be called Platform Extras.

4. Admin and Dev Tools will be merged into the new Applications moduleset.

In summary, this means that the GNOME releases would be composed by the
following modulesets:
 - Desktop
 - Platform
 - Platform Extras
 - Mobile

Extra information
-----------------

We're planning to do the actual reorganization of the modulesets as soon as
possible during this development cycle. The idea is that GNOME 3 is released
using the modulesets.

Our initial idea is that the Desktop moduleset would ideally only contain
components with reduced or no branding. On the other hand, the long term plan
for the Applications moduleset is that it will initially contain the current
approved apps with clear branding (e.g.  Totem, Tomboy, Evolution, gedit, etc)
but it will be dissolved into a more open way of promoting apps where we simply
highlight the high-quality ones using the GNOME platform through our
communication channels (release notes, website, etc). There will be no
"official" apps anymore.

You can find an initial split of modules into the modulesets here:
http://live.gnome.org/AndreKlapper/RedefineDesktop

Comments, ideas, and suggestions are welcome.

Cheers!

The Release Team