Re: Bug#830624: ITP: xplayer -- Simple media player based on GStreamer.

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

On 07/11/2016 06:39 PM, Margarita Manterola wrote:
> I don't think this is a fair assessment. There are several desktops that are
> based on the GTK libraries. A GTK application that uses the library but does 
> not
> use any desktop specific libraries / extensions / etc, can be considered 
> desktop
> agnostic for any of the GTK desktops.

Installing the MATE libraries for Pluma comes at very little cost. Maintaining
an additional package in Debian costs more, see below.

> I'm in the camp of people that dislike the new gedit and I would welcome a
> maintained text editor that uses GTK but is not linked against mate or
> cinnamon or xfce or any other GTK desktop.

The Debian Wiki lists 16 text editors (excluding Pluma) [1] and probably shows
just a little selection of what we have in Debian. Are you really sure there is
no editor that suits your needs?

> I have not looked in detail into these new applications, but in general I 
> think
> that the idea sounds like a good one and I don't think it's fair to dismiss 
> them
> as desktop-agnostic because they use the GTK library.

My main argument is not whether these applications are desktop agnostic or not, 
my
main argument is that adding another text editor (or any package in general) is
not just a matter of upload and forget, it's needs be properly maintained.

I am saying that because we currently have over 1031 RC bugs that affect 
Stretch [2],
a large number of these bugs exist because the packages in question are either
unmaintained or poorly maintained - these are mostly gcc-6-related or debhelper-
related issues.

These Linux Mint apps are mostly maintained by Clement Lefebvre alone [3] while 
most
of the other editors are maintained by a larger team. With my personal 
experience
with Clement and the general quality problem that Linux Mint has [4], I do not
have a lot of trust that he will be able to provide proper maintenance for these
applications in the future and these so-called X apps will just be additional
potential candidates for RC bugs.

If we want to be able to release Stretch, we should rather focus on fixing 
existing
packages than just adding new packages with redundant functionality but 
potential
maintenance problems.

Cheers,
Adrian

> [1] https://wiki.debian.org/TextEditor
> [2] https://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/
> [3] https://github.com/linuxmint/xed/commits/master
> [4] 
> http://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-the-linux-mint-hack-is-an-indicator-of-a-larger-problem/

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer - glaub...@debian.org
`. `'   Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaub...@physik.fu-berlin.de
  `-GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546  0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913



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Re: Bug#830624: ITP: xplayer -- Simple media player based on GStreamer.

[Margarita Manterola]

Hola John Paul Adrian Glaubitz!

> Unlike previously mentioned in this discussion, these applications aren't 
> fully
> desktop-agnostic as they are written in GTK and the Mint people admit that
> themselves.

I don't think this is a fair assessment. There are several desktops that are
based on the GTK libraries. A GTK application that uses the library but does not
use any desktop specific libraries / extensions / etc, can be considered desktop
agnostic for any of the GTK desktops.

I'm in the camp of people that dislike the new gedit and I would welcome a
maintained text editor that uses GTK but is not linked against mate or
cinnamon or xfce or any other GTK desktop.

I have not looked in detail into these new applications, but in general I think
that the idea sounds like a good one and I don't think it's fair to dismiss them
as desktop-agnostic because they use the GTK library.

-- 
Regards,
Marga


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Re: Bug#830624: ITP: xplayer -- Simple media player based on GStreamer.

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

On 07/10/2016 03:34 PM, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort wrote:
> That blog post made me think this was a coordinated effort between various DEs
> to create some apps that they all would use. Which would mean we wouldn't 
> need a
> gnome-$foo fork Cinnamon, another one for Mate, etc...

It isn't, it's a Mint-only thing.

> But it seems I was too naïve and that is not the case, and we're just going to
> end up with one more fork as I initially feared.

Yep, that's exactly the case.

> I so hope I am wrong on this...

I'm afraid you are not.

Adrian

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer - glaub...@debian.org
`. `'   Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaub...@physik.fu-berlin.de
  `-GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546  0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913

Re: Bug#830624: ITP: xplayer -- Simple media player based on GStreamer.

[Bjørn Mork]

Emilio Pozuelo Monfort  writes:
> On 09/07/16 22:31, Franciscarlos Santos Soares wrote:
>> Hi Emilio!
>> 
>> Thank you for contacting us. In fact, like independent application of any 
>> DE, 
>> but they were compatible with the traditional look of windows and based on 
>> the 
>> GTK library. So would provide a good working environment in the old 
>> computers 
>> that read daily in public schools that work.
>
> I found http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2016/02/the-first-two-x-apps-are-ready/,
> which makes things clearer. This seems to be a cross-desktop (Mate, 
> Cinnamon...
> XFCE?) project to provide some core apps. Which we wouldn't end up with 
> multiple
> forks of the same stuff, and that addresses my concerns.

That's the forking version of https://xkcd.com/927/ , isn't it?


Bjørn

Re: Bug#830624: ITP: xplayer -- Simple media player based on GStreamer.

[Emilio Pozuelo Monfort]

On 10/07/16 15:14, Bjørn Mork wrote:
> Emilio Pozuelo Monfort  writes:
>> On 09/07/16 22:31, Franciscarlos Santos Soares wrote:
>>> Hi Emilio!
>>>
>>> Thank you for contacting us. In fact, like independent application of any 
>>> DE, 
>>> but they were compatible with the traditional look of windows and based on 
>>> the 
>>> GTK library. So would provide a good working environment in the old 
>>> computers 
>>> that read daily in public schools that work.
>>
>> I found 
>> http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2016/02/the-first-two-x-apps-are-ready/,
>> which makes things clearer. This seems to be a cross-desktop (Mate, 
>> Cinnamon...
>> XFCE?) project to provide some core apps. Which we wouldn't end up with 
>> multiple
>> forks of the same stuff, and that addresses my concerns.
> 
> That's the forking version of https://xkcd.com/927/ , isn't it?

That blog post made me think this was a coordinated effort between various DEs
to create some apps that they all would use. Which would mean we wouldn't need a
gnome-$foo fork Cinnamon, another one for Mate, etc...

But it seems I was too naïve and that is not the case, and we're just going to
end up with one more fork as I initially feared.

I so hope I am wrong on this...

Cheers,
Emilio

Re: Bug#830624: ITP: xplayer -- Simple media player based on GStreamer.

[Steve Cotton]

m

On 10 July 2016 08:59:59 CEST, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz 
 wrote:
>On 07/10/2016 08:39 AM, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort wrote:
>> I foupml0lnd
>http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2016/02/the-first-two-x-apps-are-ready/,
>> which makes things clearer. Thisf seems to be a cross-desktop (Matea) 
>> $₩p5p!4♧''. jj
>Cinnamon...
>> XFCE?) project to provide some core apps. Which we wouldn't end up
>with multiple
>> forks of the same stuff, and that addressemt. I:.!I! ki;,H.i:s my concerns.
>
>Yep, same concern here. I'm on the MATE packaging team and I am
 against/£♥♥♥]e I iit-.su',
>packaging any of these X apps. They don't bring any benefit really, any
>of the
>existing applications they are forking run perfectly fine on any
>desktop that
>Debian offers.
>
>I also fear additional work load for the security team if multiple
>instances
>of the same media player have to be taken care of.
>
>Adrian

Re: Bug#830624: ITP: xplayer -- Simple media player based on GStreamer.

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

On 07/10/2016 09:55 AM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> I don't follow how it is "same concern": As I understand the blog post, 
> the very purpose of X-Apps is to be desktop-agnostic.  Do you consider 
> pluma well suited as a desktop-agnostic editor? It currently links 
> against libmate-desktop-2-17 and mate-desktop-common which seems not 
> agnostic to me.

I didn't claim that Pluma is desktop-agnostic, I just said it runs just
fine on any of the desktops that Debian offers.

And I'm not sure how any of the X apps are supposed to be truly desktop-
agnostic when they are using a particular toolkit like GTK or Qt. Unless
they have completely rewritten Pluma from scratch - which I doubt because
there wouldn't be a point of forking things - their version of Pluma
will still be linking against GTK3 (hopefully not GTK2) which means it
won't bring any huge improvements when running under any non-GTK
desktops.

Given the history of Linux Mint with their weird view on security (Linux
Mint is the very definition of a FrankenDebian [1]) where they withhold
important security updates because their weird mixture of packages would
otherwise break too often or their hijacking of package names (mdm, for
example), I don't really trust them to come up with a clean design for
desktop agnostic applications. Heck, the first thing they wanted to do
was naming their forked version of Pluma "xedit".

Adrian

> [1] https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_make_a_FrankenDebian

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer - glaub...@debian.org
`. `'   Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaub...@physik.fu-berlin.de
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Re: Bug#830624: ITP: xplayer -- Simple media player based on GStreamer.

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Quoting John Paul Adrian Glaubitz (2016-07-10 08:59:59)
> On 07/10/2016 08:39 AM, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort wrote:
> > I found 
> > http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2016/02/the-first-two-x-apps-are-ready/, 
> > which makes things clearer. This seems to be a cross-desktop (Mate, 
> > Cinnamon... XFCE?) project to provide some core apps. Which we 
> > wouldn't end up with multiple forks of the same stuff, and that 
> > addresses my concerns.
> 
> Yep, same concern here. I'm on the MATE packaging team and I am 
> strongly against packaging any of these X apps. They don't bring any 
> benefit really, any of the existing applications they are forking run 
> perfectly fine on any desktop that Debian offers.
> 
> I also fear additional work load for the security team if multiple 
> instances of the same media player have to be taken care of.

I don't follow how it is "same concern": As I understand the blog post, 
the very purpose of X-Apps is to be desktop-agnostic.  Do you consider 
pluma well suited as a desktop-agnostic editor? It currently links 
against libmate-desktop-2-17 and mate-desktop-common which seems not 
agnostic to me.

I agree that if there are no real difference between programs tied to 
specific desktops and not tied to specific desktops, then we should 
maintain only one of them - but in my opinion it then makes better 
sense to maintain those *not* tied to MATE or any other desktop.


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private


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Re: Bug#830624: ITP: xplayer -- Simple media player based on GStreamer.

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

On 07/10/2016 08:39 AM, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort wrote:
> I found http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2016/02/the-first-two-x-apps-are-ready/,
> which makes things clearer. This seems to be a cross-desktop (Mate, 
> Cinnamon...
> XFCE?) project to provide some core apps. Which we wouldn't end up with 
> multiple
> forks of the same stuff, and that addresses my concerns.

Yep, same concern here. I'm on the MATE packaging team and I am strongly against
packaging any of these X apps. They don't bring any benefit really, any of the
existing applications they are forking run perfectly fine on any desktop that
Debian offers.

I also fear additional work load for the security team if multiple instances
of the same media player have to be taken care of.

Adrian

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer - glaub...@debian.org
`. `'   Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaub...@physik.fu-berlin.de
  `-GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546  0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913

Re: Bug#830624: ITP: xplayer -- Simple media player based on GStreamer.

[Emilio Pozuelo Monfort]

Hi,

Please keep the bug report and debian-devel@ in Cc.

On 09/07/16 22:31, Franciscarlos Santos Soares wrote:
> Hi Emilio!
> 
> Thank you for contacting us. In fact, like independent application of any DE, 
> but they were compatible with the traditional look of windows and based on 
> the 
> GTK library. So would provide a good working environment in the old computers 
> that read daily in public schools that work.

I found http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2016/02/the-first-two-x-apps-are-ready/,
which makes things clearer. This seems to be a cross-desktop (Mate, Cinnamon...
XFCE?) project to provide some core apps. Which we wouldn't end up with multiple
forks of the same stuff, and that addresses my concerns.

Maybe the XFCE / Cinnamon / Mate maintainers can confirm if that is indeed the 
plan.

Cheers,
Emilio

Re: Bug#830624: ITP: xplayer -- Simple media player based on GStreamer.

[Marco d'Itri]

On Jul 09, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort  wrote:

> Do we really need yet another fork of GNOME?
Probably not, but I suspect that this problem should be solved 
upstream...

-- 
ciao,
Marco


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Re: Bug#830624: ITP: xplayer -- Simple media player based on GStreamer.

[Emilio Pozuelo Monfort]

On 09/07/16 22:05, Franciscarlos Santos Soares wrote:
> Package: wnpp
> Severity: wishlist
> Owner: Franciscarlos Santos Soares 
> 
> * Package name: xplayer
>   Version : 1.0.7
>   Upstream Author : Bastien Nocera 
> * URL : https://github.com/linuxmint/xplayer
> * License : GPL, LGPL
>   Programming Lang: C
>   Description :  Simple media player based on GStreamer
> 
>   Xplayer is part of X-App project, is a simple yet featureful media player

Do we really need yet another fork of GNOME?

Emilio