Re: [desktop] why kde and gnome's menu situation sucks
On 10/24/2002 12:44 PM, Jim Penny at jpenny@debian.org wrote:
> I am now going off on a tangent. I fear this project! Not because it
> will dilute the quality or reputation of Debian; I think neither are
> true.
>
> But, if it takes off, the debian desktop team is taking it on themselves
> to pick winners and losers from the free software spectrum. How will
> these decisions be made? How long will they persist, once in place?
> How will politicking and lobbying be handled? Most importantly, how
> will upstream "also-rans" react?
>
> Socially, this could be very devisive.
>
Jim, I agree with what you are saying, but it is almost unavoidable. In
order to have a simple, elegant, easy to use menu hierarchy; there is simply
no way that Debian Desktop can include every app in the menu.
That means that Debian Desktop will *have* to cull out apps and make hard
choices. The idea is that best of breed apps make it, and others don't.
Very Darwinian, but it is the only way.
Colin Walters favors letting the Gnome packagers pick the best of breed GTK
apps; and letting the KDE packagers pick the best of breed QT apps. This
should help minimize the political and social discord.
Come on people, there are at least a dozen "video" players available under
Linux. We all know that some of them really suck, with unresponsive or AWOL
upstreams, and poor technical quality, or poor user interfaces. Surely we
can cull out the obvious losers easily, argue reasonably over the good
candidates, and then present the winner(s) in the menu hierarchy. Should
not Linux, and especially Debian, put forward only the best and most worthy
software for desktop use?
> I am not saying it is a bad idea. I am saying that it will require
> tact -- something for which the free software community, and the Debian
> community are not always known.
>
Heh. Well, we agree on that too. Despite best intentions and maximum tact,
I suspect there will be flamewars over some of these hard choices. But the
hard choices have to be made. Everyone who cares about these choices will
be able to kick in their two cents and be heard - but then the decision will
be made. This is the best we can do.
Cheers,
Luke Seubert
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