[vanco@sonic.net: Re: New section in potato?]

[Aaron Van Couwenberghe <vanco@sonic.net>]

On Sat, Dec 12, 1998 at 04:58:35PM -0800, Joseph Carter wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 13, 1998 at 12:04:05AM +0100, Kristoffer.Rose@ENS-Lyon.FR wrote:
> > Joseph Carter writes:
> > 
> > > "Desktop" with KDE and Gnome would be HUGE.  No, Gnome section now, KDE
> > > section later when we have KDE.  Gnome and KDE are BOTH big enough for
> > > their own sections, Gnome is as big as tex and KDE is bigger.
> > 
> > Please: this is wrong!  The sections are *not* there for our convenience
> > but for the USERS to find what they WANT, based on CATEGORIES of software.
> 
> Gnome is a category unto itself really.  Gnome applications are hardly
> standalone, same with KDE.
> 
> 
> > Rationale: The ultimate goal of the sections is to make it easy for even
> > the novice user to pick the sections corresponding to the work areas they
> > will be using.
> > 
> > So the "tex" section was, IMHO, always a mistake and I'd definitely prefer
> > that all the "tex" packages quietly migrated to the "text" section (or, in
> > a few cases, elsewhere).
> 
> What I believe is a mistake is calling a great majority of the things
> that are currently in x11 as x11.  Arguably the only thing that seems any
> bigger is probably devel or libs.  I think we probably could serve to
> rethink the sections all together, but I haven't a good suggestion for
> physical layout of the archive handy at the moment.  I also am not
> certain it's really necessary yet.  I'd rather be pro-active than
> re-active on this one, but I'd like to know what other people think
> before making real proposals.
> 
> I don't want to make changes for the sake of changes.

sections should be based on their functionality, not their affiliation. When
we finish berlin, should we have a "berlin" section for all apps built upon
berlin libraries? no! the berlin text editor will go in editors, the berlin
desktop managers will go in desktop, etc.. They will just depend on the
berlin display server (which will be in graphics) and the berlin
communication libraries (which will go in network or libs).

Personally I think that debian needs to start sub-categorizing. One of the
most confusing things for newbies with debian is that there is such a huge
number of packages that are really not grouped in any meaningful way (ie by
affiliation not functionality).

So maybe debian should begin looking into a way of doing two types of
organization at once: affiliation and funcitonality. Sorting could be
swapped between the two. For example, the way it is now:

[hypothetical if the x11 section is fixed, if berlin eventually gets
released just for demonstrational purposes]

desktop
	proprietary window managers (wmaker, afterstep, etc)
	KDE
	Gnome, Gnome-Panel
	Berlin desktop managers
editors
	TK editors
	GTK/GNOME editors
	Qt/KDE editors
	Berlin editors
	
All of those packages under desktop/ are intermixed, in no particular order.
Same with editors.

Now, say if each of the subcategories presented (which are not as of now
existent, only their packages) came into existence, then you could swap how
the package list is presented:

KDE
	desktop
	editors

GNOME
	desktop
	editors

Berlin
	desktop
	editors

IMO this would alleviate a lot of confusion among newbies but still put
things where the experts want it.

	I don't know if something like this has been previously (or
if being simultaneously) discussed somewhere else. Someone redirect me?

Aaron Van couwenberghe

--note: I felt that this particular line of thought, if pursued, should go
to debian-private. so it showed up there too. please respond to me and
debian-private on this one.