On Thursday 28 August 2003 19:44, Spider wrote: > begin quote > On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 16:00:13 +0200 > > Paul de Vrieze wrote: > > Gnome's configuration does not include a menu system with all > > installed X applications > > No, and this is in many cases a -good- thing. Gnome does not -need- to > provide menu entries for xcalc, xmag, xeyes and a lot of other X > applications. To include theese on a default menu would go against > guidelines and common sense. > But in other cases a not so good thing. (The reason that I like a good menu system to be available) > This means that for many such applications a good line of reasoning has > to be added so our default "newbie-friendly" desktop doesn't end looking > like L random User 's desktop did in the year 1997 after 1.5 years of > active installation in windows 95. ie, it would be a clear sodomization > of a good interface. > Certainly, I know the hell of installing in windows. It's not even so much the fact that all applications are installed as the fact that they all want a toplevel presence making a big cluttered menu of software vendors > > > However, there are some points coming up otherways in the thread that we > have to bring up front. > > 1) No major redesigns of the DE's. > This is important, we shan't make all icons look like different versions > of larry, replace all Foot's , K's and other such things with a G', make > the default to include Gentoo Tip of the Day, add Gentoo.org links on > every desktop, make all desktops install Evolution and add it as the > default mailhandler everywhere "because its the best" . > I wouldn't mind people creating themes with cows in them, and could be persuaded to include them in kde, but I basically agree with you and would not like to go the redhat direction either (especially since their magic does not allways work creating a big mess). > 2) We need a consensus and smooth integration of tools. This is the more > important part of a Gentoo desktop. A cdburner shall work for users in > the 'cdrw' group, and preferrably without running a Druid or Wizard. > Couldn't agree more > 3) Multimedia. > The various DE's partially integrate their own multimedia > applications, but theese all use common backend libraries. > There are also multimedia applications that are not tied to DE's at all so I think we need a multimedia subproject too. > > 4) Menu's > There's a lot of controversy here. I want the installation of such a > system to be a consious act and preferrably kept off per default. > (genmenu is a good example here. very good even.) I agree, and I believe that is the direction the people who are working on it are going to. > > 5) extra-DE integration. > This mainly belongs upstream, as DE's move towards common standards > this is something we can lean back and reap the fruits of. > Certainly, but there sometimes is more then just DE's, what about the many more standalone windowmanagers. > > 6) intra-DE modifications > I'm all for the various DE's implementing or removing features, as > long as its maintainable, and sane. Adding highstrung pipedreams that > can't be made to work properly is not our thing. Leave this to > Mandrake, SuSE and RedHat. They are good at it. > Certainly. > 8) Extra > What needs to be made work though, is a consistent set of graphics to be > made avaiable, and perhaps default. Fex, the GRUB loader should have a > graphics design similar to the framebuffer background, as well as the > GDM and KDM + elogin themes. > my idea of the vanilla flag would be for this kind of thing. To have the default gdm theme being the default instead of the gentoo one (which I like). > This sort of branding is not intrusive on the user (framebuffer > background is the most intrusive one, and should and could well be > disabled by default) > 9) Decisions and communications > All theese things need to be properly discussed and in the open. I was > shocked to find out I suddenly got a manager who thought I was to run my > decisions about including applications to the Gnome desktop by them, as > well as the idea of a single uniformed Gentoo desktop is completely > -appalling- to me. In this regard the ruling cabal (ie, management) > have flunked completely and their actions , and more > importantly, inactions are to be questioned. This whole process could > have been dealt with far nicer. For me the final decision has not been made yet, but I believe there is a need for a -desktop toplevel. For the gnome and kde teams I guess its main role would be coordination, not making all kinds of decisions the gnome team is capable of making. Paul -- Paul de Vrieze Gentoo Developer Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net