Re: Debian packages and freedesktop.org (Gnome, KDE, etc) menu entries

[Mathieu Roy <yeupou@gnu.org>]

Cameron Patrick <cameron@patrick.wattle.id.au> said:

> On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 10:05:57AM +0100, Mathieu Roy wrote:
>
> | Sure. However, I use WindowMaker since several years now, and apart
> | from bug fixes, I did not notice real changes over years (the
> | changelog does not speak otherwise, it's almost only about bugs and
> | i18n updates).
> | 
> | About blackbox, <http://blackboxwm.sourceforge.net/>, there no news
> | since September the 2nd... 2002. 
> | 
> | It's maybe a mistake to say that these projects are no longer active
> | at all, however their activity by comparison to GNOME and KDE is
> | pretty small.
>
> What's your point?  The window managers don't /need/ to be changed - or
> at least they shouldn't.  They don't natively support Debian's menu
> system, they don't natively support .desktop files, and are unlikely to
> ever do either.  The current Debian menu system, despite its faults,
> supports writing menus for weird formats that an arbitrary window
> manager (or other menuing system) might be able to read.

I do not understand how can you, in one hand, say there no need for a
standard like .desktop for these window managers (well, this term is 
questionnable - wmaker is, for instance, more than a windowmanager),
and, in another hand, talk about "weird formats" of different window 
manager.

The point of .desktop is to avoid having "weird formats" to handle,
but only one.

If these environment needs the data, or part of the data, that can be
contained in .desktop (currently provided by the debian menu system),
why would it be stupid for them to be able to deal directly with
.desktop?


> If .desktops are ever to achieve prominence in Debian, we need to be
> able to do the same with those.

Sure, as long as some environment will not support .desktop while
needing the data contained in .desktop, Debian will have to use
converters. 


> | For instance, if I correctly understood the story, RedHat stopped
> | shipping WindowMaker because they do not want to support a window
> | manager that do not follow the agreements between KDE and GNOME
> | people, freedesktop.org in fact.
>
> There is no reason for Debian to do something merely because Red Hat
> does.

Why do you assume that I want Debian to follow RedHat choice?


> Trying to make Debian compliant with freedesktop's standards by
> dropping everything that doesn't support them is a sub-optimal
> approach, and is unlikely to be taken seriously by many people.

Nobody proposed that. I do not see the point in arguing about a
non-existant proposal.



-- 
Mathieu Roy

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