Re: State of Foundation charter
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 5:05 AM, Jonh Wendell wrote: > Hello, folks. > > I'm taking a look at http://foundation.gnome.org/about/charter/ , which > mentions it's still a draft, from Oct 2000! > > Do we have a final version, or is it the final version so that it can be > renamed? 1) There is no official version which is newer than that. 2) Many moons ago I started collecting feedback for a final version here: http://www.co-ment.net/text/141/ but never integrated them into a final text. More comments would obviously be welcome, and if someone wanted to take on the drafting and incorporation of those comments, I doubt the board would object. (I believe I have a more modern draft on a hard drive at home, but I can't get to that until Tuesday, I'm afraid.) 3) Note that the charter has no legal force, so the fact that it is 'incomplete' is not really important. That said, I agree it would be nice to update it as a statement of our values and organizational principles, and to remove or clarify things that have changed. HTH- Luis ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
Hi! > I don't know if I'm an outlier, but what's always annoyed me about UI > programming in GTK+ is container widgets, and the need for me to worry > about them in the IDE. I don't understand why I can't drag & drop > widgets, and have the IDE take care of deciding what container widgets I > need, and integrate basic concepts like alignment & HIG compliance the > way the Mac form builder works. Start hacking on the glade3 module! Tristan send a call for help by blog recently. There is really just lack of people wanting to improve glade in this area. This has nothing to do with GTK+ (or only very litte). Regards, Johannes signature.asc Description: Dies ist ein digital signierter Nachrichtenteil ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
Hi, Juanjo Marin wrote: > Possibly Alberto is right. Anyway, the original message of this thread > is that GNOME doesn't have long term goals. It seems that the > improvement of GTK attact a lot of attention. Proposed short-to-mid-term goal: Make the GNOME platform exciting to alpha-dog application developers & thought leaders. Proposed community mantra: Beautiful computing freedom Proposed project vision: Hidden in plain sight: Everyone using GNOME, no-one noticing The thing about a vision (which is missing here) is that it easily makes it easier for you to choose the right path at the fork in the road. Think of the vision of the Palm Pilot as a great example - easy to remember, and informs every decision: "Fits in a shirt pocket, syncs seamlessly with PC, fast and easy to use, no more than $299". What functionality is crucial? Seamless sync. Do we need to include a certain component? What's its effect on the BOM? Can we still retail at $299? Effect on size? Will it still fit in a shirt pocket? If not, no. The hidden in plain sight vision has an element of that, but then it doesn't provide any "use" vision, which is the biggest part of the problem we have on the user interface. Are we a middleware & platform project? Or do we still produce compelling user interfaces? If so, for whom, in what circumstances? We probably could have had moblin be "GNOME Netbook". We probably could have had Maemo be "GNOME Smartphone". Or Sugar be "GNOME Education". We probably could have had MeeGo be "GNOME Mobile", but the project wasn't the obvious place to go, because we don't seem to know what we're providing any more. And so we're losing stewardship (and control) of these great GNOME-related projects to the Linux Foundation, or to Intel & Nokia, or to the distributions. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 09:09 -0500, Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak wrote: > > How about a healthy dose of ambition and aim for becoming the best > > platform of choice, regardless of the freeness? > > All desktops are aiming for that, free or not. And honestly, most > desktops are "good enough". > > > > We're already the most free and open platform out there. > > But we seem embarrassed to promote that fact heavily. > > > > Let's focus on how we can become the best platform overall... > > I don't think "best" matters that much to "average users". I mean, > people use Windows despite its headline-worthy flaws. > > > Personally, my company moved to Gnome/Gnu/Linux because: > > 1) We found that our MS Exchange Server stored data in bizarre > proprietary hard-to-backup format which requires specialized proprietary > backups programs, and as a result, we lost a lot of email in a crash. > This is a "freedom of data" issue. It is much easier to backup simple > text files in a dovecot maildir! > > 2) We wanted to print photos with their filenames at the bottom of the > page. Impossible with the crummy Windows software. Easy, if we patched > gThumb! This was a "freedom to change" issue. > > > > Obviously I want Gnome to be the "best" too. However, I think freedom is > a key Gnome attribute that is easy to explain, easy to promote, and > truly different and better than the competing offerings. I fully agree that this is great and this is good stuff for marketing. However, if we need a strategy, we need to focus on other things. We don't need to play the freedom card again, we're already best at that. My main point was that when it comes to making a big plan, we need to tackle the harder issues where we're lagging behind. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
How about a healthy dose of ambition and aim for becoming the best platform of choice, regardless of the freeness? All desktops are aiming for that, free or not. And honestly, most desktops are "good enough". We're already the most free and open platform out there. But we seem embarrassed to promote that fact heavily. Let's focus on how we can become the best platform overall... I don't think "best" matters that much to "average users". I mean, people use Windows despite its headline-worthy flaws. Personally, my company moved to Gnome/Gnu/Linux because: 1) We found that our MS Exchange Server stored data in bizarre proprietary hard-to-backup format which requires specialized proprietary backups programs, and as a result, we lost a lot of email in a crash. This is a "freedom of data" issue. It is much easier to backup simple text files in a dovecot maildir! 2) We wanted to print photos with their filenames at the bottom of the page. Impossible with the crummy Windows software. Easy, if we patched gThumb! This was a "freedom to change" issue. Obviously I want Gnome to be the "best" too. However, I think freedom is a key Gnome attribute that is easy to explain, easy to promote, and truly different and better than the competing offerings. - Mike ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:04:44 +0100 Dave Neary wrote: > What features/removal of bugs are desired for GTK+? Though that may seem boring and not shiny enough to excite people, my personal number one missing feature is general purpose undo/redo support at a low level in the stack. Currently, some applications have undo, other don't. Amongst those that have it, they often only have it for a small number of specific widgets (e.g. GtkTextView) or actions, and the code is often copy/pasted around. If it's not copy/pasted around, risks are that the behaviour gets inconsistent amongst applications etc. I absolutely agree with [1] that missing undo support is one of the biggest current usability flaws, and I think the stack should encourage its implementation in applications by offering a nice framework for it. Holger [1] http://www.alistapart.com/articles/neveruseawarning ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
Em 24-02-2010 10:16, Dave Neary escreveu: > Richard Stallman wrote: >> Software freedom is a means to furthering our vision of providing >> technology to all, regardless of means, physical and technical >> capability or culture. >> >> Freedom can lead to more available technology, but it is vital in its >> own right. It is little benefit to have technology available >> if the price of using it is your freedom. That is why we write >> free replacements for existing proprietary software. > > To draw a parallel with slavery (hyperbole, I know, but humour me): Is > it enough to say "you're free now" for a society to be just? Is the goal > of freedom for all a sufficient vision, especially when that goal is > (more or less) accomplished today? Freedom from slavery is a means to an > end, the "end" being a just society with no racial discrimination and > equal opportunity for all. Freedom is "a mean" means that it could be replaced by "another mean", which means that you'd have a society that "is" just if you consider freedom an injustice. Since freedom is quite the opposite of an injustice, then said society simply can't be considered just. As a consequence, a society needs to include Freedom in order to be called just. Corolary: freedom is a cornerstone mean for a "just society" > If a computer user can be free, but will end up with an inferior > computing environment because of it, he may welcome returning to a > proprietary environment, as many Mac OS X users & free software > developers have. Every day I look at a Nokia N900 I feel exactly like that, tempted to return to a proprietary environment because it has a way superior computing environment than my OpenMoko Neo Freerunner. I have been strong, fortunately. Even though this phone is not 100% free, it's the next best thing for a free phone (or tracking device). > I'm just saying, that while user freedom is vital, it is insufficient as > a vision for the GNOME project. Assuming (which I doubt) that it is insufficient, "open access" is way more undefined and subject to conclusions which frequently lead to "no freedom", so I don't view it as an interesting definition. Perhaps this can be a middle ground: "a superior computing environment that gives you full freedom". Rui ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
2010/2/24 Juanjo Marin : > Possibly Alberto is right. Anyway, the original message of this thread > is that GNOME doesn't have long term goals. It seems that the > improvement of GTK attact a lot of attention.(BTW, Alberto's > presentation on GUADEC about this is _REALLY_ a good starting point [1], > it is worth to revisit it). Thanks a lot Juanjo, there's a point I wanted to make with that talk, which is, there's _A LOT_ that can be achieved and improved about the situation without committing a single line of code to Gtk+. * Modernize and consolidate the documentation (focused on empowering the developer to achieve interesting tasks rather than explaining the details of the API) * Improving the development experience. * Releasing installers for the more stable set of bindings on the non free platforms * Integration with other IDEs (Eclipse, XCode, VisualStudio) The real problem we have is a shortage of developers, the only way to solve that long term is creating mindshare, and we have to be aggressive and radical in our thinking if we want to achieve more with less. In general, attracting the huge developer community out of the Linux desktop landscape and attracting them to our platform, and eventually to the whole free stack/OS. > [1] > http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC/2008/Slides?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=marketing_gtk_Guadec2008.pdf -- Un saludo, Alberto Ruiz ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 08:30 -0500, Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak wrote: > On 02/24/2010 01:05 AM, Richard Stallman wrote: > > Software freedom is a means to furthering our vision of providing > > technology to all, regardless of means, physical and technical > > capability or culture. > > > > Freedom can lead to more available technology, but it is vital in its > > own right. It is little benefit to have technology available > > if the price of using it is your freedom. That is why we write > > free replacements for existing proprietary software. > > Richard is a purist, of course, but I do wish that gnome would beat the > freedom drum more, something like this: > > Gnome, the Free Desktop: Free to Use, Free to Share, Free to Change > > or > > Gnome: The Desktop of the Free > > or, more hiply, > > Gnome: Own Your Code. Own Your Data. Own Your Desktop! > > Really, this is the only thing that truly distinguishes Gnome from the > practical alternatives like MS, Apple. (Maybe a footnote could say > "...and less obscure than Xfce", hah hah.) How about a healthy dose of ambition and aim for becoming the best platform of choice, regardless of the freeness? Trying to win a race where you're behind by competing on another level probably won't win us much. Especially because the broader audience generally puts more value to the qualities where we fall behind (and unfortunately doesn't have trouble sleeping because of a lack of freedom). We're already the most free and open platform out there. Let's focus on how we can become the best platform overall... Ruben ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 11:16 +0100, Dave Neary wrote: > Hi, > > Richard Stallman wrote: > > Software freedom is a means to furthering our vision of providing > > technology to all, regardless of means, physical and technical > > capability or culture. > > > > Freedom can lead to more available technology, but it is vital in its > > own right. It is little benefit to have technology available > > if the price of using it is your freedom. That is why we write > > free replacements for existing proprietary software. > > To draw a parallel with slavery (hyperbole, I know, but humour me): Is > it enough to say "you're free now" for a society to be just? Is the goal > of freedom for all a sufficient vision, especially when that goal is > (more or less) accomplished today? Freedom from slavery is a means to an > end, the "end" being a just society with no racial discrimination and > equal opportunity for all. > > I am speculating, but I imagine there were a great many slaves who, once > they had obtained their freedom, were reminiscent for the day when it > was their owner's responsibility to take care of them. > > In the same way, freedom for computer users is a means to an end - that > end being that we provide a better computing environment than > proprietary alternatives, and not simply a functional free environment. > > If a computer user can be free, but will end up with an inferior > computing environment because of it, he may welcome returning to a > proprietary environment, as many Mac OS X users & free software > developers have. > > I'm just saying, that while user freedom is vital, it is insufficient as > a vision for the GNOME project. This is very well said Dave. While freedom is an important factor in life, it is not the only defining factor for quality of life. At the end of the day, most of us want a certain level of comfort too. We need a strong vision and strategy to become best of breed in software. Merely being free will only please the ascetic who can live of mental joy, but it will never capture a significant market, which in the end just means that you'll slowly become irrelevant. Ruben ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
Possibly Alberto is right. Anyway, the original message of this thread is that GNOME doesn't have long term goals. It seems that the improvement of GTK attact a lot of attention. Maybe, this can be one of our long term goals. There are technical issues that are better discussed on the development list, but if we mark this as one of our long term goals, the other teams of our community also have to work on this goal. We all have to be aware we are in the process of making GTK+ sexier than ever :). There are other areas to improve like marketing, branding, documentation, etc (BTW, Alberto's presentation on GUADEC about this is _REALLY_ a good starting point [1], it is worth to revisit it). We have to figure out all the task to accomplish and then we have to scheduling. Possibly, the release team can lead the effort of consulting the other teams about what need to be done and propose a roadmap for that. Just my 2 cents, -- Juanjo Marín [1] http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC/2008/Slides?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=marketing_gtk_Guadec2008.pdf El mié, 24-02-2010 a las 12:41 +, Alberto Ruiz escribió: > Hi all, > I think that this sort of discussion belongs to the gtk-devel mailing list, > besides, all of this "nice to have" have been discussed in the past > but none has actually stepped up to write actual code (as Martyn says, > everytime you start writting something, you hit the legacy wall). > > The point that I'm trying to make is that, unless somebody steps up to > implement some of those advancements and seriously push them for > inclusion, this discussion is not really going anywhere. > -- Juan José Marín Martínez Tlf: 956009437 (Corp. 409437) Móvil: 671596200 (Corp. 696200) Fax: 956009445 (Corp. 409445) Informática. Consejería de Cultura. DP Cádiz. Junta de Andalucía ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On 02/24/2010 01:05 AM, Richard Stallman wrote: Software freedom is a means to furthering our vision of providing technology to all, regardless of means, physical and technical capability or culture. Freedom can lead to more available technology, but it is vital in its own right. It is little benefit to have technology available if the price of using it is your freedom. That is why we write free replacements for existing proprietary software. Richard is a purist, of course, but I do wish that gnome would beat the freedom drum more, something like this: Gnome, the Free Desktop: Free to Use, Free to Share, Free to Change or Gnome: The Desktop of the Free or, more hiply, Gnome: Own Your Code. Own Your Data. Own Your Desktop! Really, this is the only thing that truly distinguishes Gnome from the practical alternatives like MS, Apple. (Maybe a footnote could say "...and less obscure than Xfce", hah hah.) The current slogan of "Made to Share" is vaguely cool in a way that developers can appreciate, but I think it's meaningless as a tool for roping in new users. Just my 2 cents. - Mike ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
State of Foundation charter
Hello, folks. I'm taking a look at http://foundation.gnome.org/about/charter/ , which mentions it's still a draft, from Oct 2000! Do we have a final version, or is it the final version so that it can be renamed? Cheers, -- Jonh Wendell http://www.bani.com.br ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 12:41 +, Alberto Ruiz wrote: > Hi all, > I think that this sort of discussion belongs to the gtk-devel mailing list, > besides, all of this "nice to have" have been discussed in the past > but none has actually stepped up to write actual code (as Martyn says, > everytime you start writting something, you hit the legacy wall). Ignore the legacy wall and allow major API and ABI breaks. It's time. > The point that I'm trying to make is that, unless somebody steps up to > implement some of those advancements and seriously push them for > inclusion, this discussion is not really going anywhere. Sorry but, you are absolutely wrong about nobody stepping up to implement those advancements: o. Dova-core and Vala's dova patches are written and exists. o. The collection objects are written and exists. Both as a GLib branch and in the form of libgee (but in GLib nobody uses it because libgee can't be a dependency on GLib, as it would be circular. And the mindset also isn't that collections should be used over C-only list types - which is why you see with GVariant the introduction of yet another iterable thing in GLib -) o. A webkit GTK+ component is written and exists o. The .vapi files for GTK+ already exist, they just need to be added to the tree of GTK+, and an approval should be given by GTK+'s maintainers to allow .vala to be used as language for future GTK+ development. Every single thing I mentioned in my previous E-mail exists. The code isn't the problem. The availability of experts isn't the problem. The problem is that GTK+'s development style is "it must be stable, you can't ever break the API nor ABI". This scares the young experts away. And since this discussion matters for nothing less than the very relevance of GTK+ and GNOME in future, I think it should be held at the level of GNOME. It also concerns far more than just GTK+ itself. But people might have different opinions on that. Cheers, Philip -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
Hi all, I think that this sort of discussion belongs to the gtk-devel mailing list, besides, all of this "nice to have" have been discussed in the past but none has actually stepped up to write actual code (as Martyn says, everytime you start writting something, you hit the legacy wall). The point that I'm trying to make is that, unless somebody steps up to implement some of those advancements and seriously push them for inclusion, this discussion is not really going anywhere. -- Cheers, Alberto Ruiz ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 13:04 +0100, Dave Neary wrote: > Hi, > > Murray Cumming wrote: > > On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 11:07 +, Martyn Russell wrote: > >> I think it is important to do releases when you have progress in the > >> project not just because you have some new shiny feature to give to > >> people. > > > > Yes, releases are good, but we don't have to call them stable. > > While the abstract "stay stable" vs "innovate" discussion is > interesting, I'm interested in hearing what kinds of features people > would add if, tomorrow, someone said "OK - out with the crack-pipes, > let's turn the funky feature dial up to 100". > > What features/removal of bugs are desired for GTK+? How about this stuff? (it's a far more simple object system) http://gitorious.org/dova How about a pluggable reference collecting garbage collector? We all want to solve this cyclic references stuff in Vala, having to mark things as weak. And since it would be pluggable, it wouldn't be harmful for people who don't like garbage collectors. How about having .vapi files for all of Gtk+ interfaces and classes? How about finally moving GtkTreeModel out of Gtk+ and into GLib using a proper collection framework? Something like this: http://git.codethink.co.uk/?p=glib;a=shortlog;h=collections I'm sure many people have been experimenting similarly. > I've been hearing: > * more flexibility for the developer > * easier theming (CSS theming, nice effects, make it easy to ship & get > themes) Right, with the new JavaScript and G-I stuff this is going to be great. > * easier creation of new widgets > * a great canvas widget > * enable rendering of widgets in a scene graph > * integration of Webkit Yes, let's make a GtkWebkit as part of standard Gtk+ 4.0 > * enable easy animations (whatever this means) > * a rocking IDE that makes it as easy to create visually attractive apps > as it is on Mac Great proposals, yes. [CUT] Cheers, Philip -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
Hi, Murray Cumming wrote: > On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 11:07 +, Martyn Russell wrote: >> I think it is important to do releases when you have progress in the >> project not just because you have some new shiny feature to give to >> people. > > Yes, releases are good, but we don't have to call them stable. While the abstract "stay stable" vs "innovate" discussion is interesting, I'm interested in hearing what kinds of features people would add if, tomorrow, someone said "OK - out with the crack-pipes, let's turn the funky feature dial up to 100". What features/removal of bugs are desired for GTK+? I've been hearing: * more flexibility for the developer * easier theming (CSS theming, nice effects, make it easy to ship & get themes) * easier creation of new widgets * a great canvas widget * enable rendering of widgets in a scene graph * integration of Webkit * enable easy animations (whatever this means) * a rocking IDE that makes it as easy to create visually attractive apps as it is on Mac I'm not sure if any of these are sufficiently well defined to be easy to accomplish - nor am I sure if doing all of these would make it really nice for a developer. I don't know if I'm an outlier, but what's always annoyed me about UI programming in GTK+ is container widgets, and the need for me to worry about them in the IDE. I don't understand why I can't drag & drop widgets, and have the IDE take care of deciding what container widgets I need, and integrate basic concepts like alignment & HIG compliance the way the Mac form builder works. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 11:07 +, Martyn Russell wrote: > > On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 09:03 +, Martyn Russell wrote: [CUT] > I think it is important to do releases when you have progress in the > project not just because you have some new shiny feature to give to > people. I'm more in favor of releasing based on a set of features, to be honest. Otherwise you inflate the value of a release for your audience. > For 3.0 I can see why you want to have *something* more than a > cleaner code base of course but I quite like the idea of a GTK+ which > feels much more solid. For 3.0, sure. But I think we shouldn't let 4.0's developments be blocked by it. Innovating is too important for that, in my opinion. Also, 4.0 should be a whole lot more exciting to join than 3.0 is in my opinion. > I suppose this comes down to if you think 3.0 should have the sort of > changes 1.x->2.x had or not? I'm not sure about 3.0, but as mentioned earlier I do think GTK+ could use another such transition period of innovation and experimenting, yes. > > Now you've done the GSEAL() work then we could do bigger work in a > > branch before releasing an ABI breaking release (as stable) that gives > > people nothing but the expectation of another future ABI break, meaning > > that it won't be used much anyway. > > Of course. But an ABI break is always better than an API break and if > recompiling is all that's really needed, the effort by the developer > linking with GTK+ is really quite minimal (compared to the 1.x->2.x work > that was required when I ported all my apps back then). This sudden effort that application developers had to do didn't only have downsides: It made many people improve their oold code, they drastically improved their UIs. It made GNOME a much better desktop. And it created new kinds of innovation in many areas. The same thing happens with the decay of CORBA and the introduction of D-Bus. The emerging D-Bus inspired for example Telepathy (and a nice symbiosis came to be). Sometimes destruction is a good thing. It makes it possible for new weeds to grow, and it cleans up the mess. That doesn't mean I always advocate starting over. But I think GNOME needs a new perspective for next few years: Technology is changing. Perspectives are changing. And we'd be missing the train in a big way if we let mobile slip (as we are, atm). Cheers, Philip -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 11:07 +, Martyn Russell wrote: > I think it is important to do releases when you have progress in the > project not just because you have some new shiny feature to give to > people. Yes, releases are good, but we don't have to call them stable. -- murr...@murrayc.com www.murrayc.com www.openismus.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On 24/02/10 10:11, Murray Cumming wrote: On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 09:03 +, Martyn Russell wrote: At some point you have to clean up your code base, that's been the case in every project I have worked on. I don't think it is a bad thing that GTK+ is released just "more cleaned up", but others disagree and want 3.0 to have x, y and z major new features. The problem is that you'll need another ABI break to do major refactoring. GSEAL() alone won't be enough, even if it's an initial part of it. GSEAL should be part of refactoring, not a reason to release. I think it is important to do releases when you have progress in the project not just because you have some new shiny feature to give to people. For 3.0 I can see why you want to have *something* more than a cleaner code base of course but I quite like the idea of a GTK+ which feels much more solid. I suppose this comes down to if you think 3.0 should have the sort of changes 1.x->2.x had or not? Now you've done the GSEAL() work then we could do bigger work in a branch before releasing an ABI breaking release (as stable) that gives people nothing but the expectation of another future ABI break, meaning that it won't be used much anyway. Of course. But an ABI break is always better than an API break and if recompiling is all that's really needed, the effort by the developer linking with GTK+ is really quite minimal (compared to the 1.x->2.x work that was required when I ported all my apps back then). -- Regards, Martyn ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
Hello, The GTK+ GSEAL work is almost done [1], and the cleaning work have been started in the 2-90 branch [2] I think that we only need more hands to do all the remaining job :) The good news is that you don't need to be a expert to help removing deprecated code or moving GSEAL'd members to private structures, like this commit [3] Best regards [1] http://live.gnome.org/GTK%2B/3.0/PendingSealings [2] http://git.gnome.org/browse/gtk+/log/?h=gtk-2-90 [3] http://git.gnome.org/browse/gtk+/commit/?h=gtk-2-90&id=16be7293e6a4eab760aef3eb7283943bb1bbdefb -- Javier Jardón Cabezas ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
Hi, Richard Stallman wrote: > Software freedom is a means to furthering our vision of providing > technology to all, regardless of means, physical and technical > capability or culture. > > Freedom can lead to more available technology, but it is vital in its > own right. It is little benefit to have technology available > if the price of using it is your freedom. That is why we write > free replacements for existing proprietary software. To draw a parallel with slavery (hyperbole, I know, but humour me): Is it enough to say "you're free now" for a society to be just? Is the goal of freedom for all a sufficient vision, especially when that goal is (more or less) accomplished today? Freedom from slavery is a means to an end, the "end" being a just society with no racial discrimination and equal opportunity for all. I am speculating, but I imagine there were a great many slaves who, once they had obtained their freedom, were reminiscent for the day when it was their owner's responsibility to take care of them. In the same way, freedom for computer users is a means to an end - that end being that we provide a better computing environment than proprietary alternatives, and not simply a functional free environment. If a computer user can be free, but will end up with an inferior computing environment because of it, he may welcome returning to a proprietary environment, as many Mac OS X users & free software developers have. I'm just saying, that while user freedom is vital, it is insufficient as a vision for the GNOME project. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 09:03 +, Martyn Russell wrote: > At some point you have to clean up your code base, that's been the > case > in every project I have worked on. I don't think it is a bad thing > that > GTK+ is released just "more cleaned up", but others disagree and want > 3.0 to have x, y and z major new features. The problem is that you'll need another ABI break to do major refactoring. GSEAL() alone won't be enough, even if it's an initial part of it. GSEAL should be part of refactoring, not a reason to release. Now you've done the GSEAL() work then we could do bigger work in a branch before releasing an ABI breaking release (as stable) that gives people nothing but the expectation of another future ABI break, meaning that it won't be used much anyway. -- murr...@murrayc.com www.murrayc.com www.openismus.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 09:03 +, Martyn Russell wrote: > On 23/02/10 22:52, Philip Van Hoof wrote: > > On Tue, 2010-02-23 at 16:53 +, Martyn Russell wrote: Hi Martyn, > > Don't be confused: most of this reply isn't directed at you personally. > > Sure, but I will indulge all the same ;) That's ok ;) I'll be cutting the text a bit. [CUT] (see?) > We aren't waiting for anything :) But you can't refactor exposed public > struct pointers which are in common use since you break the API and any > application using that structure. I think it's time for a few major API breaks in Gtk+, and why don't we start doing more development of core components (like Gtk+) in Vala? I bet it would make things a lot more easy for contributors. I remember that at a hackfest in Berlin that it was proposed to have IDL files that describe the API. Vala's VAPI files' syntax was proposed for this. With GIR (introspection XMLs) much of this problem is also solved, of course. Anyway, all this stuff is for the maintainers to decide. Of course. > The GSEAL work is an initial step to make this refactoring process > easier. GSEAL is great, yes. (thank you Lanedo) [CUT] > > I don't believe that GTK+ needs more cleaning up. Its architecture isn't > > that flawed at all. > > But that's your opinion as someone who is not and has not been a > maintainer. Talking to the maintainers is actually how I formulated my > opinion. Yes (Gtk+ isn't a very exciting project to join, which is I think part of the problem here). [CUT] > I think NASA had a lot more people working for them than the GTK+ > project and the GSEAL work is quite comprehensive. Now what if we'd make Gtk+ a more exciting project to join? :-) psst. Vala (I'm not saying it's the holy grail, but it is exciting) > At one point Imendio labs time (1/2 a day per week) was used by the > whole company for some months to JUST do sealing and we are still > not quite done. Thank you Lanedo! (the new Imendio) > > I think it's untrue to say that GTK+ needs more years of cleanups before > > it can start receiving innovation. > > Innovation can always be done, but if each time you want to do it you > really want to refactor the code base before you start, that dampens > your efforts and costs time to work around. > > Tracker is no different here. It has had a lot of clean ups before it > started getting any innovation. That's true, fair enough. We did, however, innovate Tracker in parallel with the massive cleanups that we did. And we're still in that process. I call Tracker 0.7 and upcoming 0.8 an entirely new product than 0.6 [CUT] > At some point you have to clean up your code base, that's been the case > in every project I have worked on. I don't think it is a bad thing that > GTK+ is released just "more cleaned up", but others disagree and want > 3.0 to have x, y and z major new features. Yeah, I guess I'm one of those guys ;) Or, if 3.0 is going to be GSEAL and cleanups: to start with 4.0 and drastically innovate, change and develop it (and don't fear API changes anymore at all) and throw 3.0 in maintenance. Same for GLib & Gdk. Kinda like how the 1.x -> 2.0 transition was. I think 2.0 was great for Gtk+, and I think Gtk+ needs another one of those innovative periods. Cheers, Philip -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On 23/02/10 22:52, Philip Van Hoof wrote: On Tue, 2010-02-23 at 16:53 +, Martyn Russell wrote: Hi Martyn, Hey Philip, Don't be confused: most of this reply isn't directed at you personally. Sure, but I will indulge all the same ;) When talking to some of the core maintainers, they often say they want to refactor things internally in GTK+ to make maintaining it easier and getting new people into the toolkit easier. What are we waiting for? The Gods? Ideology? Let's be serious.. We aren't waiting for anything :) But you can't refactor exposed public struct pointers which are in common use since you break the API and any application using that structure. The GSEAL work is an initial step to make this refactoring process easier. Johannes makes a really good point too. At some point you could probably say that GTK+ was _THE_ exciting project to work on and a lot of code got in that should have had more reviews and perhaps that's why it needs cleaning up in places now. Comon! How many years of cleaning up does a team need unless it admits that its entire architecture was one big design flaw? It's not really that. Every project requires constant maintenance to change with the times. If you only build on top of what was already there, then at some point, the architecture and parts of the code base need rethinking to make the toolkit maintainable and optimal. This is true in any project that survives time and innovation. I don't believe that GTK+ needs more cleaning up. Its architecture isn't that flawed at all. But that's your opinion as someone who is not and has not been a maintainer. Talking to the maintainers is actually how I formulated my opinion. Not even a mission to the moon ever needed as much years of cleaning up as GTK+ seems to need if you do follow the logic that the GSEAL work is the only big thing a group can do within a year. I think NASA had a lot more people working for them than the GTK+ project and the GSEAL work is quite comprehensive. At one point Imendio labs time (1/2 a day per week) was used by the whole company for some months to JUST do sealing and we are still not quite done. I think it's untrue to say that GTK+ needs more years of cleanups before it can start receiving innovation. Innovation can always be done, but if each time you want to do it you really want to refactor the code base before you start, that dampens your efforts and costs time to work around. Tracker is no different here. It has had a lot of clean ups before it started getting any innovation. GTK+ has also been too exposed to change some of these issues (hence the GSEAL work). I applaud the GSEAL work. It just hasn't been enough for a year or more of work on GTK+: no matter how you look at it, GTK+'s innovation is stalled. To the point that it gets ridiculous. At some point you have to clean up your code base, that's been the case in every project I have worked on. I don't think it is a bad thing that GTK+ is released just "more cleaned up", but others disagree and want 3.0 to have x, y and z major new features. If that statement takes all of my karma, whatever karma means, then it does. So be it. :) -- Regards, Martyn ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
