Re: Module Organisation

[Matthias Clasen <matthias clasen gmail com>]

On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 6:20 AM, Allan Day <allanpday gmail com> wrote:

Hi all,

I often find it hard to figure out which module lives where, and I
think that consistently organised modules would help people to
understand what we are trying to build.

In terms of what we are building, there are three primary
classifications of modules:

 * Core
 * Core apps
 * Apps

The core is the OS. It encompasses the application developer platform
and the shell.

Core apps are those applications that are installed by default and
cannot be removed. They are independent entities, but they are to some
extent part of the OS. Core apps have generic names like "Files",
"Music" and "Notes".

Apps includes any app that isn't core. These apps have branded names
like "gedit", "Evolution" and "Polari".

It would be really fantastic if we could organise Bugzilla and JHBuild
along these lines. It would help us to communicate what GNOME is, both
to our contributors and to distributors. It would also help me find
modules when I want to file a bug. :)

Currently, we have the following metamodules in jhbuild:

meta-gnome-core
    meta-gnome-core-shell
    meta-gnome-core-extras
    meta-gnome-core-utilities
    meta-gnome-core-os-services
meta-gnome-devel-platform
meta-gnome-extended-devel-platform
meta-gnome-apps-tested

I think  they map to what you are describing roughly in the following way:

meta-gnome-core-utilities == Core apps

rest of meta-gnome-core == Core

meta-gnome-apps-tested == Apps

Correct ? We can certainly strive to streamline the organization of modules in that way. At the same time, we can consider if the split into 4 separate files:

gnome-sysdeps gnome-suites-core-deps gnome-suites-core gnome-apps

is really useful, or just confusing, considering we have an overlayed meta-module structure that looks slightly different. Two ways we could go here:

a) enforce a 1-1 mapping between files and metamodules

b) dump it all in one file

With respect to bugzilla: I don't think the module grouping is helpful at all there. I have only ever found it to get in my way, e.g. when I can't add a Gnome target mark to a bug because it is not in the right group, or when I have to restart typeahead search in the combobox, because the module grouping is overlayed on top of the alphabetical sorting...