Re: [IMPORTANT] How much time are you planing to spend on Sawfish 3.0

[Mark Diekhans <markd kermodei com>]

Christopher Roy Bratusek <zanghar freenet de> writes:
> FYI: porting to GTK+ 3.0 is the most important thing on the todo list.

As a Sawfish user, I must ask why GTK+ 3.0 is the most important
goal???

This will lead to a long period of time where newer version of
Sawfish will not be available to a large number of people.

Linux/Gnome has done an interesting job of recreating the
MicroSoft monolithic operating system.  Gnome is so fragmented
and has so many interdependencies that one pretty much has to
wait for a full gnome release to get a current gnome program.
Add to this many of the linux distributors have forgotten their
Unix roots and now the `desktop' and all of the associated
programs are now part of the `operating system'. So a Gtk upgrade
often involves a *kernel* upgrade.

This is completely frustrating for some who wants to run Sawfish
as alternative to the inflexibly and monolithic Gnome desktop.

I am at an institution that, to help manage this nightmare, has
settled on supporting only CentOS, which prides itself on being
3-4 years out of date.  To use a relatively current sawfish, I
need to compile *10* GTk-related packages. If I want to compile
from git, this requires fighting getting a working and
compatible set of autoconf tools.

This keeps me from even testing Sawfish changes, for fear of
spending hours that I don't have available trying to get it to
compile.

I would much rather see maintaining compatibility for as wide a
range of GTK versions as possible and reasonable be the goal. Ask
if a feature that restricts the current platforms Sawfish can
run on be worth further marginalizing a fantastic piece of
software.

Sorry about the rant.  I am really thrilled about all the
work going into Sawfish.

mark