Fwd: Mono (Re: New Programs for Hardy?)

[Kevin Fries]

On Wed, 2007-12-12 at 17:22 +0100, Sebastian Heinlein wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, den 12.12.2007, 05:06 -0600 schrieb Conrad Knauer:
> 
> > Mono by default takes 48MB of space on the CD. The ISO download is
> > 690+ MB. Therefore, it is taking up valuable space that could be used
> > for a whole host of other things. Also, for that 48MB, there are just
> > two applications which use Mono. These are F-spot (photo manager) and
> > Tomboy (note application). Ubuntu also includes two other programs
> > which do a similar job, gThumb (photo manager) and GNOME sticky notes.
> > 
> > In my opinion, these two applications function well enough to warrant
> > the removal of Mono dependent programs.

This argument has been made and lost in Launchpad, and the consensus
seems to eliminate gThumb.  I for one agree with that assessment.

F-Spot and gThumb are very similar in capabilities on local images.
Though F-Spot's interface is a little cleaner.  But the big difference
comes in Web2.0 integration.  GThumb has none, while F-Spot integrates
with Flickr, Picasa, etc.  Hands down, this is what end users expect,
and it is gThumbs that needs to be eliminated.

As for Tomboy vs GNOME sticky notes, this one is even more obvious.
Sticky notes needs to go away.  GNOME no longer considers it part of the
base suite of packages, and has instead worked with Tomboy on tighter
and tighter integration.  Tomboy can fire links to open on your  browser
or Nautulus, fire alarms as reminders, and integrates with Evolution.
Sticky notes does none of that.

I realize the original argument was about the size of Mono.  And that is
a legitimate argument.  But lets also realize functionality and
integration needs to be maximized in order to make this distro easy for
the noobs it is aimed at.  We already have a distro out there that makes
sacrifices of number of packages over space... its called DSL.

So, when I hear solid arguments on both sides like this one, I generally
follow the Dad test (my dad will screw things up faster than my mom
because his is more willing to mess with things to "make" them work, mom
will just ask).  Mom takes pictures with her new digital camera she is
getting for Christmas... then asks my dad's help in putting them online
so she can share them with my brother in LA, me in Denver, and her
sister in Pittsburgh.  If they were on a Ubuntu system with gThumb or
F-Spot, the pictures can be imported, tagged, and sorted quite well.
But with F-Spot, my dad can export to a web page, or use file->export to
post those to a Flickr account.  Huge win to F-Spot.

Taking the same thought process with Tomboy vs Sticky Notes... If I want
to take an quick note, both will do the job just fine.  But I can also
take an email and drop it into a sticky with Tomboy.  I can also make
the notes appear as to-do items in evolution.  If a file on my hard
drive is referenced in the note (i.e. Finish sales proposal ~/2008
Sales.odt), I can click on the file name to open it.  None of that can
be done with Sticky Notes.

These two products have been replaced with a Mono based equivalent and
both have become standards despite the size hit.  There are solid
reasons for that.  While space is always a concern, the level of
integration expected by the modern users can not be sacrificed.  And
therefore, I would disagree with the OPs suggestion that these products
be replaced.  If you want to save space, I say get rid of gThumb and
Sticky Notes like many other distros have.  The mono based replacements
have too many modern features to follow the OPs suggestion.

Just my $0.02

-- 
Kevin Fries
Senior Linux Engineer
Computer and Communications Technology, Inc
A Division of Japan Communications Inc.