Bug#741573: Proposed draft of ballot to resolve menu/desktop question
Le Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 06:14:45PM +0200, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud a écrit :
> Hi Charles, and thanks for your feedback,
Thanks as well for your prompt answer :) Here are a few point-to-point
comments. Altogether, I would happily support option D if it were further
amended.
> the last sentence of D1, put in force
> using §6.1.1 (decide on any matter of technical policy): "Applications
> providing a .desktop file should not provide a Debian menu file." This
> will allow maintainers that _do_ provide .desktop files to stop
> providing .menu files as well.
Indeed, I have overlooked that important part. Sorry for this.
> With D1 in place, I expect .menu files to
> start disappearing from the archive at a good pace; it will become
> somewhat urgent for those relying on the menu system to work towards
> having this .desktop-to-menu translation infrastructure in place.
An alternative would be to develop support for the FreeDesktop menu on those
platforms that only have the Debian menu at the moment.
Since option D is calling for volunteer work, which may be quite unusual for
the TC, I think that it would be important that it either provides alternatives
like the one above, or explain briefly why they were not retained in the final
resolution.
> > https://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries
>
> I think it is quite reasonable to assume that Keith's proposal is a
> derivative of that proposal.
Thanks. I would appreciate if it would be acknowledged, I am a bit academic by
training...
> The TC is currently trying to decide whether to decide on the conflict
> (AB vs C) or to decide on the 'menu' matter of technical policy (D).
In my impression, it is not a good thing to conflate two different kind of
decisions in the same vote. This said, the current portfolio of options is a
good ground for focusing on the technical aspects.
C: Status quo reaffirming the wording of the Policy and the importance of
the Debian Menu (needed even for the Python interpreter, etc).
Z: Status quo by inaction.
AB: Softening the requirement of the Debian Menu.
D: Migration to the FreeDesktop format, and therefore disparition of the Debian
Menu if nobody works on this migration.
(By the way, I am not sure how to interpret the difference between A and B.)
I have invested a lot of time on AB as I was looking for a compromise that
would satisfy broady, but as I wrote more recently, I also do not mind a more
radical outcome. I would support option D it if we resolve the the point
below.
> From what I understand of your opposition, you're afraid that further
> discussions around softening the "all packages that provide applications
> that need not be passed any special command line arguments for normal
> operation should provide a FreeDesktop .desktop file entry for those
> application" part would be met with unresolvable opposition from Bill,
> right? What about the following formulation then (not yet entirely
> convinced, but I hope that's a step forward)?
>
> > 1. The Technical Committee resolves that applications providing a
> > .desktop file should not provide a Debian menu file.
This is the first half of solving the problem. The second would be to add that
the "should" requirement of the Policy's section 9.6, paragraph 2, is changed
to "may".
Have a nice day,
Charles
--
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan
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