Hi Ian, On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 04:15:18PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote: > Of course the participants in the discussion were approaching the > discussion on the basis that they are arguing about what the assumed > single menu system should be like. But it seems to me that we can > give everyone what they want by explicitly saying that these two > systems should coexist. I haven't had a chance to formulate my thoughts on the wider question yet, but I wanted to respond specifically to this. It is *not* giving everyone what they want to let these two systems coexist. - What maintainers want is to have to spend as little effort as possible on maintaining menu entries for their software (so one system is better than two for this; and something upstream is better than not) - What users want is to be able to find the software installed on their Debian systems through the GUI. - What *I* want is for the TC to take a principled stand on the point that the policy manual exists to describe distribution-wide integration policies, instead of taking a "there's more than one way to do it" easy way out. The Debian menu system was created out of recognition that there is a many-to-many mapping between applications and desktop environments (or window managers or what-have-you), and aimed to solve this problem by providing a common format that can be used as a nexus between them. Given that the two most widely-used desktop systems on Debian no longer support the Debian menu system, it is a failure in this regard. But this is still the goal that should be set in policy, and not one I believe we should compromise on. > Of course a flipside is that it should be straightforward to cause > the trad menu to be accessible via a desktop system's menu, even if > the desktop system hides it by default. I don't think anyone disputes > this either, though. I think there should be a single menu system in Debian, and that it should have provisions for "preferred" applications on different desktop environments, like .desktop files currently do; but that the UI should also expose "non-preferred" applications in some suitable form. Over the lifetime of this disagreement, I have repeatedly heard claims that the Debian menu system should not be exposed at all in e.g. the GNOME desktop because it's "full of junk" (paraphrased). If there are problems with the way applications are being categorized, or if applications are being included in ways that we think don't make sense on a graphical desktop, then we should address those problems through the policy process - we shouldn't simply have desktops deciding to opt out of showing the user the software they've chosen to install. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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