James: >> I anticipate that the old GNOME 2.x gnome-session, metacity, gnome-panel >> and applets will live on in the GNOME 3.x timeframe for exactly these >> reasons. Lots of users, not just Sun Ray, will insist that GNOME keeps >> working on their hardware, and this is the most straightforward way to >> continue providing support for those users. > > At the moment, it looks like metacity won't be living on: > http://blogs.gnome.org/metacity/2009/07/06/the-future-of/ > > So it looks like XFCE or LXDE is the way to go.
I had a meeting today with Vincent Untz, who is on the GNOME release team. At this meeting Vincent recommended using GNOME 2.x components as I suggest above with GNOME 3.0 on platforms that do not support OpenGL. Of course, there is some risk. Across the GNOME community, is the non-OpenGL userbase large enough to warrant ongoing support of these GNOME non-OpenGL components? I think the webpage you point to expresses some valid concerns that this community is not significant enough to fork the code and continue maintenance. At the meeting I had today, Vincent also echoed this concern. That said, I think it is really too early to tell which is the best approach right now. We might not really know until GNOME 3.0 is actually released and we find out how many people scream and cry that their computers no longer work. How many of these users have support contracts with the various distributions that provide GNOME may also affect the outcome. Brian
