Re: Gnome2 for woody
On Sun, Jul 21, 2002 at 03:32:25PM +0100, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> On Sun, 2002-07-21 at 15:22, Steve M. Robbins wrote:
> > There is nothing sane about removing a functioning GNOME 1 system
> > for vapourware. Offer the choice!
>
> I'd appreciate if you didn't call Gnome2 vapourware. I find that
> insulting.
Point taken. Gnome2 is not vapourware. To Bastien, and anyone else
who was offended by my intemperate remark, I offer my apology. I
realise that there are a number of folks working hard on Gnome2, and I
do appreciate their efforts. I look forward to using Gnome2.
Notwithstanding the above, it is clear that Gnome2 is not a
transparent replacement for the current Gnome1. It may be so in the
future, but at present any "transition" is vapour. Given that, it
seems highly premature to make any decision about replacing Gnome
wholesale.
In this debate, I often see statements like the following.
> Unstable will have Gnome2 and won't have 1.4.
and
> For unstable and testing, GNOME 2 is the correct way to go.
With no supporting argument, I have to conclude that this is simply
the prejudice of the person uttering it. So YOU personally want to
run Gnome2? Fine! I don't think anyone is arguing against putting
Gnome2 into Debian. By all means, upload all of gnome2 to the
archive.
However, the introduction of Gnome2 is no reason to initiate a pogrom
against Gnome1! Leave it be! It will be dropped from the archive
when there is nobody left with the motivation to maintain it.
I urge you to have some humility. People can legitimately make a
different choice than you do. Let them!
Another oft-heard sentiment is:
> Unstable isn't for users. Period.
To those who hold this point of view, I suggest you add some shades of
gray to your palette: the world is not black and white. There is no
sharp division between "users" and the gods who can handle unstable.
To me, this type of sentiment betrays an intellectual laziness. Often
the remark is trotted out in order to shout down an idea that requires
a bit of imagination. In this instance, the idea is that we could
actually have Gnome1 and Gnome2 versions of a given package in the
archive at the same time. If you're going to oppose this idea, it
seems to me that you'll need a better argument to support your
contention.
On Sun, Jul 21, 2002 at 01:40:28PM -0400, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> The problem is that then if there is a bug in a gnome1 package, and we
> are using the same package names for gnome1/gnome2, then a bugfix for
> gnome1 cannot be made.
Yes!
> Instead of possibly leaving buggy packages in
> sarge for months, it would be better to just make the transition.
That is one answer. Another solution is to leave both G1 and G2
packages in the archive and fix the bug.
Again, if you are going to maintain the position that it is "better"
to make the transition, you ought to offer some justification. What
is better about it?
> Then the old argument comes up over why gnome2 should replace gnome1
> packages, etc. Personally (the only kind of opinion that exists, of
> course, are personal ones ~,^) the way I look at it is, we don't have 3
> versions of KDE in Debian, why should we have a version of each GNOME?
The answer to your question is: we should have a version of each GNOME
to allow the user to chose when (and WHETHER) to make the switch.
I would turn the question around and ask you: Why do you want to make
the decision that everyone using unstable should use Gnome2?
Before you bring up the usual argument that it is "tradition" that
there is one and only one version of a given piece of software in the
archive at any moment in time, examine the archive a bit more
carefully. You will find a number of exceptions: gcc, apache,
autoconf, automake, and the linux kernel itself, to name a few.
To summarize: Gnome2 is not a transparent replacement of Gnome1 at
this time. It is completely unnecessary to expunge Gnome1 packages
now, and sheer recklessness to do so on the hope that a workable
transition will appear in the future.
Rather than hiding behind non-sequiturs like "unstable is not for
users", let's have a technical debate. What is the problem? Does the
continued existence of Gnome1 packages threaten you in some way? Are
you all afraid of the suffix '2'?
Puzzled,
-Steve
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