Re: galeon (not) in Debian stable
On Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at 10:06:04AM +0200, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> Le mar 26/08/2003 à 09:12, Sven Luther a écrit :
> > Well, i don't think so, And it is ironic, don't you fing, that the
> > epiphany people are now adding all the features the fork was about back
> > then, like mouse gestures and so on.
>
> But they are adding it in a way they feel more consistent with the HIG,
> using plugins the newbie user will not even consider.
> More fundamentally, they didn't made the same errors as with Galeon:
> they implemented the essential before the loads of extra features.
After having taken pains to remove all the features out of galeon 1.3
before the fork. Also, when the pre-fork discussion was there, the
plugin question was raised, and the epiphany lead developper rejected
it.
> > Also, it is because of the aims and choices that so many people where
> > very unhappy about galeon 1.3 featurelessness. And epiphany doesn't even
> > has the personal toolbar stuff, which is sort of going backward.
>
> What toolbar stuff are you talking about? The toolbar is customizable,
> and the bookmark bar is way easier to use than Galeon's, with just a
> checkbox to include a bookmark in it.
Maybe it is just that i didn't find it, so much for the intuitiveness of
the new interface.
> > Not to forget that the lead epiphany developer is targeting, not your
> > average debian user, but his grandmother who is not computer literate.
> > This may be all well for gnome and its new corporate market target, but
> > it is wrong for debian to make such statement, and has already alienated
> > a big part of the galeon userbase.
>
> So you feel Debian should not target your grandmother? I thought this
> kind of feelings was less widespread in Debian developers than in
> OpenBSD's.
No, i feel that debian is about choice, and should not target _only_ my
grandmother or some corporate users. Debian is about choice, and not
shipping galeon in debian/sarge will take away that choice.
> Anyway, I don't see anything wrong with Debian shipping Epiphany by
> default with the Gnome desktop, especially when nothing at all prevents
> you from installing another browser.
I have no problem with it too, but if galeon 1.3 is removed from sarge,
what choice will you habe ?
> > Disclaimer : notice that the same can be said for most of gnome, but you
> > get used to it some, and there are other tools, but i bet that most
> > people which mades such critics about gnome2 where primarily concerned
> > about the galeon 1.3 state.
>
> I think the major error the core Gnome developers made was to launch a
> new desktop without realizing it would take so long to port applications
> to GTK2. A large project like Galeon cannot be ported in 5 minutes.
It would have if precious month would not have been lost in fighting
over the interpretation of the HIG and the "don't let any choice to the
user" philosophy that was persistent back then. These two month could
have been used to finish galeon 1.3 before the gnome 2.2 UI freeze, but
not, it was lost fighting, and the lead galeon developer left, after
having almost removed all features of galeon.
> > Normal, they hijacked the galeon developer base, no ?
>
> Were developers forced to work on Epiphany?
No, i don't think so, but people being involved in epiphany (some
probably even paid to do so, i guess) would have worked on galeon
instead.
> > Supporting epiphany over galeon, and the whole fork was an error, and
> > now we are paying for it.
>
> Looking at the two projects now, with Galeon sinking in more and more
> beta releases, getting slower each time, and Epiphany being close to a
> releasable state, makes me think it was a good choice.
Normal, since the development effort was thrown at epiphany instead of
galeon. Epiphany who follows the HIG and the "no choice to the user"
philosophy more closely and has thus been accepted in gnome. No surprise
there.
And sure, i am bitter about it, and even if epiphany becomes all that
galeon could have been, galeon was the cooler name for it :)))
> > Removing galeon from debian/sarge would be an
> > error too, and i hope it does not happen.
>
> This is true, nothing justifies removing Galeon from sarge/sid.
Ok, so let's stop this thread, i think i have said everything i could
have said and more, and it will not be productive anyway.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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