Re: Bug#187245: galeon-snapshot: idiotic section change
On Wed, Apr 02, 2003 at 05:52:38AM -0500, David B Harris wrote:
> On Wed Apr 02, 11:20am +0200, Filip Van Raemdonck wrote:
> > This is just _DUMB_. I'm unknown with what the criteria used to pick
> > packages for the new kde & gnome sections were, but everything indicates
> > it was more or less a "links to the respective libraries" decision.
> >
> > This is a loss people. We used to group packages in sections by their
> > functionality.
>
> Except, y'know, for the x11 section.
And "Except" is the keyword. Now it is more becoming common rule.
Actually, x11 doesn't even do as the gnome & kde sections do. Following
your logic, galeon would've been in x11 and not web before. But x11 is
only used as a last resort for graphical applications which don't fit
better into other sections. For gnome & kde this is no longer true.
> > Do we suddenly have a different way of indicating this,
> > aside from reading each description one by one? OTOH, for indicating a
> > certain application fits into a particular environment, we already have
> > tasks and metapackages; in that respect the two new sections are merely
> > duplicating existing functionality.
>
> Actually, no, we don't have tasks and metapackages for that. The
> respective tasks and metapackages include only those packages which are
> part of the "official" distribution for that project.
No it's not, take a look at the gnome metapackage; it depends on more than
just the official gnome distribution.
> They don't
> include, for instance, the two dozen calculators that are available for
> those desktop environments. They don't include each and every editor.
And do you consider it really useful to get a section containing two dozen
calculators which just all happen to link to the same toolkit? Where you
have to wade through hundreds of other applications which also just happen
to link to the same toolkit?
> > If the gnome & kde sections are to become just two more dump sections as
> > x11 mostly is, I don't see the point of having them at all.
>
> Others disagree, and feel that, since users often care which environment
> their apps are designed for, making it easy for them to pick out those
> apps is a good thing.
People don't care. Shown by the popularity of OpenOffice.org & mozilla.
And by the fact that most people I know use KDE apps in GNOME environments
or the other way around. The only thing they care about is that apps
interoperate well for DnD, that copy/paste is done the same way everywhere
and that they don't have to reconfigure 5 mime systems whenever they
change the installed set of applications.
Aside from the above, users also _shouldn't_ care, and even if they do, we
don't have to make it easy for them to pick out specific apps. We have to
make sure Debian is a uniform operating system and if people want to
install very specific applications because others don't work well in the
DE they use[1], that means our distribution is broken. Especially so as
upstream KDE & GNOME are working towards decent application
interoperability, and IMO are getting along towards that goal quite well.
Aside from the above, you also haven't refuted the point that this is a
change, which incurs loss in functionality. Which means we should only
make that change if it really gains us something, and as the only thing it
gains us is more fragmentation it shouldn't be made at all, at least not
in the way it's currently made.
Regards,
Filip
[1] They may want to install based on preference of one app over another
but in that case they already know what app they want anyway.
[2] I do not object making gnome and kde what x11 currently is: a last
resort for packages which don't fit better elsewhere.
--
Linux - the last service pack you'll ever need.
-- Oswald Buddenhagen
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