removing themes

[Kenneth Wimer]

On Thursday 09 October 2008 22:54:39 Martin Pitt wrote:
> Mark Shuttleworth [2008-10-09 21:38 +0100]:
> > What's the size-on-CD saving of removing the themes we don't want?
>
> The entire package is 270 kB. I guess we want to keep some of them
> (Clearlooks, Inverted for a11y), so we would talk about some 150 kB.

The theme engines have larger file sizes than the xml files to define a given 
theme, true. This should not be the argument for removing them. (Gosh, I wish 
it was that easy :p)

> > > Doing that split would introduce quite expensive packaging changes, a
> > > permanent delta from Debian,
> >
> > Errr.... don't we package Gnome ahead of Debian?
>
> We do, Debian is currently at the hardy version. That's actually the
> least of my concerns, too (building a new binary package is still
> relatively cheap), I'm more worried about the bad press we'd get from
> upstream and whoever else.

I think that if we replaced the aging themes we could, in their place, include 
a couple of interesting new ones. I think users would get much more out of 
being able to select a modern sexy theme. In this way we offer our default 
theme, accessability themes and a few beautiful, sexy themes.

I realize that the upstream issue is important but I wonder what gnome is 
thinking when they offer "glider" or "crux" as a modern theme for their 
users. I get the feeling that the gnome-themes package was not inteded to be 
installed by any dist by default...if one needs an accessibility theme you 
install this...and/or if you are a hard-core old-timer you'll want crux as 
well.

I am for adding a theme engine (if needed) and a couple of new themes. It 
would be very easy to find a few alternatives to the older ones we offer now 
(even if we cannot install another engine). It would defintely more than make 
up for the effort in user's eyes.

--
Kenneth