Re: Bug#969134: ITP: deepin-metacity -- lightweight GTK+ window manager
On Fri, 28 Aug 2020 at 01:53:59 +0000, stan clay wrote:
> * Package name : deepin-metacity
> Description : lightweight GTK+ window manager
Does Deepin really need both a version of Mutter *and* a version of
Metacity?
If deepin-metacity and deepin-mutter are both uploaded, they'd be the 6th
and 7th libraries derived from Metacity in the archive:
* src:metacity, GNOME 2's original Metacity window manager and window
management library, no longer used in GNOME but still used in GNOME
Flashback (a GNOME 2.x-like environment) and Sugar
* src:mutter, GNOME 3's Clutter-based window management and compositing
library derived from Mutter, used in GNOME Shell, Budgie and Gala
* src:muffin, derived from Mutter and used in Cinnamon
* src:marco, derived from Mutter and used in MATE and compiz-gnome (Hypra)
* src:ukwm, derived from Mutter and used in Kylin
* src:deepin-mutter, derived from Mutter and used in Deepin
* src:deepin-metacity, derived from Metacity and used in Deepin
(Did I miss any?)
I can understand desktop environments wanting to fork metacity or mutter,
because those libraries are the core of the desktop environment's window
manager or compositor, and developing them tightly integrated with
the window manager or compositor itself can speed up development a lot
(for example it means the window manager or compositor developers are
free to refactor the library, removing functionality that their desktop
environment doesn't need).
However, for the ones that are only intended to be used by a single
desktop environment, it might make sense to package the window management
library in the same source package as the window manager/compositor
itself, either statically linked or in a private shared library directory,
without providing development files usable by third-party packages.
> As the author says, metacity is a "Boring window manager for the adult in
> you. Many window managers are like Marshmallow Froot Loops; Metacity is
> like Cheerios."
Similar to deepin-mutter, this is not really a particularly useful part
of the description to quote. See the package descriptions for libmuffin0,
libmutter-6-0 and libmarco-private2 for better examples to follow.
smcv
Reply to: