A couple quick points:
1) the URL to gnome 2.16 release notes doesn't work!
2) the gnome-power-manager. I'm keenly interested in this application
as a developer for a producer of mobile workstations. To my knowledge,
Solaris currently lacks a robust API for userland access to power
management features, including battery status, power source management,
thermals, etc. If this utility is to be integrated into Solaris,
doesn't it make sense that first some effort be expended to create a
good (and hopefully cross-platform -- i.e. usable for SPARC as well as
x86!) API for userland programs to access this kind of data? I would
request that PSARC/LSARC consider a request for this API to be specified
before blindly including software that is too PC or Linux oriented to be
useful going forward.
In support of point number 2, I am willing to spend time to assist in
the development of such an API, as well as enhancement of desktop
applications (gnome-power-manager, or otherwise) so that the tools can
be useful across the full range of platforms supported by Solaris, from
multi-million dollar SPARC servers to small x86 laptops.
Thank-you.
-- Garrett
Glynn Foster wrote:
> Hey,
>
> So there were a couple of people that expressed an interest in seeing the
> one-pager for GNOME 2.16. It will be the next version of the desktop that we
> aim
> to integrate into Nevada, approximately within the build 50 timeframe -
> realistically it may be later than that depending on the work involved.
> Ideally
> I'd hope that we could have our subversion repository online by then.
>
> We're just working on preparing the other materials for an ARC case with a
> hope
> to schedule it early next month. I'll send the functional specification that
> we've written once it's completed.
>
>
> Glynn
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 1. Introduction
> 1.1. Project/Component Working Name:
>
> GNOME 2.16
>
> 1.2. Name of Document Author/Supplier:
>
> Brian Cameron (brian [dot] cameron [at] sun [dot] com)
> Glynn Foster (glynn [dot] foster [at] sun [dot] com)
> Irene Huang (irene [dot] huang [at] sun [dot] com)
>
> 1.3. Date of This Document:
>
> 31st July 2006
>
> 1.4. Name of Major Document Customer(s)/Consumer(s):
>
> - JDS Desktop Engineering, OPG
> - Accessibility Program Office
> - Solaris PAC
> - LSARC
> - PSARC
>
> 1.4.1. The Steering Committees you expect to review your project
>
> Solaris PAC
>
> 1.4.2. The ARC(s) you expect to review your project
>
> LSARC
>
> 1.4.3. The Director/VP who is "Sponsoring" this project
>
> Robert O'Dea/Stephen Harpster/Jeff Jackson
>
> 1.4.4. The name of your business unit
>
> JDS Desktop Engineering, Open Source Software, OPG
>
> 1.5. Email Aliases:
> 1.5.1. Responsible Manager: leo [dot] binchy [at] sun [dot] com
> 1.5.2. Responsible Engineer: glynn [dot] foster [at] sun [dot] com
> brian [dot] cameron [at] sun [dot] com
> 1.5.3. Marketing Manager: [undisclosed]
> 1.5.4. Interest List: [undisclosed]
>
> 2. Project Summary
> 2.1. Project Description
>
> This project continues on LSARC 2006/202 to provide a newer version
> of GNOME, as part of the Java Desktop System, targeted for Nevada.
> More formally, this project will integrate GNOME 2.16 along with
> some other components that aren't currently part of the official
> community release.
>
> 2.2. Risks and Assumptions
>
> 2.2.1 Schedule
>
> This project is targeted to be bundled with Nevada, with an
> expected integration date of Build 50 of the current Solaris
> OS release schedule.
>
> 2.2.2 GNOME Stack and Dependencies
>
> As GNOME starts to evolve, more and more desktop components are
> starting to require library or other dependencies outside the
> control of the GNOME community. While there is an associated
> risk with this, the benefit gain to the end user is high and
> the project team will make calls on this as appropriate.
>
> Mono still remains a significant risk to the platform, and stands
> to 'dilute' the developer story from a Sun perspective. While
> there are no core dependencies yet on Mono, more and more
> applications are being written using C#. The project team intends
> to monitor this situation for future releases.
>
> 2.2.3 Accessibility
>
> Accessibility is still a key concern in the GNOME desktop. With
> little community momentum behind the project, it is likely that
> core parts of the desktop may not be fully accessible. However,
> this situation is no different to LSARC 2006/202, and the
> project team will add resources according to need and
> associating time to market schedules.
>
> 3. Business Summary
> 3.1. Problem Area
>
> To be competitive in the desktop market, it is necessary to offer a
> modern desktop that is a reasonable alternative to the Microsoft
> desktop and competitive with current Linux offerings. Furthermore,
> it is necessary to ensure that recent improvements to the GNOME
> desktop are integrated with Solaris OS as these are likely to be
> more 'supported' within the community.
>
> 3.2. Market/Requester
>
> As per LSARC 2006/202.
>
> 3.3. Business Justification
>
> The GNOME desktop is still planned to be an operationally complete
> replacemen for CDE, allowing that product to be completely EOL/EOF.
> This work is continuing, and GNOME 2.16 is a step towards that.
>
> As per LSARC 2006/202.
>
> 3.4. Competitive Analysis
>
> As per LSARC 2006/202.
>
> 3.5. Opportunity Window/Exposure
>
> As per LSARC 2006/202.
>
> 3.6. How will you know when you are done?
>
> As per LSARC 2006/202.
>
> 4. Technical Description
>
> This project will building on the base we built with LSARC 2006/202
> GNOME For Nevada, and provide a newer version of the GNOME desktop
> into Nevada.
>
> The GNOME Project's focus on users and usability continues in GNOME 2.16
> with its hundreds of bug fixes and user-requested improvements. This
> project provides many usability improvements, performance tunings,
> improved configuration, and updated branding. More details on
> specific
> improvements can be found on the release notes [not yet released] -
>
> http://www.gnome.org/start/2.16/notes/
>
> - There have been significant changes to the GTK+ toolkit to include
> many new widgets that were being used as custom in other parts of
> the desktop. The latest GTK+ release has consolidated these, along
> with many other changes as follows -
>
> o GtkStatusIcon, a cross platform 'tray icon' API
> o GtkAssistant, a widget for creating multi-step widgets
> o GtkLinkButton, a widget that displays a clickable
> hyperlink
> o GtkRecentChooser, widgets to display and select recently
> used files
> o GtkPrintOption, cross-platform printing support
> o A framework for rich text copy, paste, and DND
> o Many improvements to existing widgets
> o Improved themeability
> o OSX and DirectFB backends to GDK
>
> The following are new proposed components to be added to the desktop
>
> release, as yet to be decided
>
> - Orca, screen reader and magnifier. If successful, LSARC 2005/504
> and LSARC 2005/506 will be merged into this case for future
> tracking.
>
> - Alacarte, menu editor. The introduction of Alacarte replaces the
> current simple menu editing functionality that is currently
> available in the desktop panel. It is written in Python using
> the GNOME bindings.
>
> - Tomboy/GTK+#, note taking utility. This is a more controversial
> introduction, as it stands to include Mono and C# as a dependency
> into the desktop. While this may be included in the official
> GNOME community release, it is not yet a platform requirement,
> and has yet to be discussed for inclusion into JDS.
>
> - gnome-power-manager, power management preference dialog. This
> components builds on the work of D-BUS and HAL, providing the user
> with a preference dialog to set power management settings.
>
>
> 5. Reference Documents
>
> GNOME Public Websites:
>
> http://www.gnome.org/
> http://developer.gnome.org/
>
> GNOME 2.16 Release Notes:
>
> http://www.gnome.org/start/2.16/notes/
>
> JDS Engineering Internal Website:
>
> http://jds.ireland/
>
> Other Related ARC Cases:
>
> LSARC 2006/202 GNOME 2.14
>
> LSARC 2006/368 D-BUS Message Bus System
> PSARC 2005/399 Tamarack: Removable Media Enhancement in
> Solaris
>
> LSARC 2006/182 Ekiga: a videoconferencing and VOIP/IP-Telephony
> application
> LSARC 2006/237 Thunderbird 1.5
> LSARC 2006/371 Vino server integration into Solaris
> LSARC 2006/347 Gnome System Monitor
> LSARC 2006/348 Gtksu: GTK+ Authorization Library
> LSARC 2006/350 GNOME System Tools
>
>
> 6. Resources and Schedule
>
> 6.1. Projected Availability
>
> This project will be included in Solaris Nevada.
>
> 6.2. Cost of Effort
>
> Refer to the PLC documentation which includes P&L for the project.
>
> 6.3. Cost of Capital Resources
>
> Refer to the PLC documentation which includes P&L for the project.
>
> 6.4. Steering Committee requested information
> 6.4.1. Consolidation C-team Name:
>
> Desktop CTeam
>
> 6.4.2. Contributing OpCo/BU/Division Name:
>
> Open Source Business Unit, OPG
>
> 6.4.3. Type of SC Approval needed:
>
> Standard
>
> 6.4.4. Project Boundary Conditions:
>
> Project Boundary Conditions will correlate with the
> latest integration date in Nevada.
>
> 6.4.5. Is this a necessary project for OEM agreements:
>
> No
>
> 6.4.6. Notes/Dependencies:
>
> As per LSARC 2006/202.
>
> 6.4.7. Target RTI Date/Release:
>
> Solaris Nevada, Expected Build 50
>
> 6.4.8. Target Code Design Review Date
>
> Completed.
>
> 6.4.9. Did this project have prior SOESC approval for a
> Marketing Release and now your requesting to go into an
> Update Release or Early Access CD?
>
> Yes, we wish GNOME to be updated for Early Access CD's.
>
> SOESC approval of GNOME Program approved in Solaris PAC
> (SOESC) meeting of 8/20/2002
>
> 6.5. ARC review type: [Standard/FastTrack/SelfReview]
>
> Standard
>
> 7. Prototype Availability
> 7.1. Prototype Availability
>
> Development versions of GNOME 2.16 are available here:
>
> http://gnome.ireland/gnome/releng/jds/
>
> 7.2. Prototype Cost
>
> Provided as an ongoing effort to keep the latest release of GNOME
> available on the Solaris SPARC and x86 platforms.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> desktop-discuss mailing list
> desktop-discuss at opensolaris.org
--
Garrett D'Amore, Principal Software Engineer
Tadpole Computer / Computing Technologies Division,
General Dynamics C4 Systems
http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/
Phone: 951 325-2134 Fax: 951 325-2191
