Modular desktop?

[John Richard Moser]

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Personally, I hate openoffice.org for many reasons.  It's slow, it's
bloated, there's no amd64 version (32 bit on amd64), I can't make it
handle RTF properly (ignores headers saved in other apps, applies
formatting directly and discards styles when saving), and the UI is just
ugly.


For a size check, here's openoffice:

The following packages will be REMOVED:
  openoffice.org*
  openoffice.org-bin*
  openoffice.org-debian-files*
  openoffice.org-gtk-gnome*
  openoffice.org-help-en*
  openoffice.org-hyphenation-en-gb*
  openoffice.org-hyphenation-en-us*
  openoffice.org-l10n-en*
  ubuntu-desktop*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 9 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 200MB disk space will be freed.


And here's abiword (word processing), gnumeric (spreadsheet), and dia
(diagram editor):

The following packages will be REMOVED:
  abiword-common*
  abiword-gnome
  abiword-help
  abiword-plugins-gnome
  dia-common*
  dia-gnome*
  dia-libs*
  gnumeric*
  gnumeric-common
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 9 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 58.5MB disk space will be freed.


A formula editor and a presentation program aren't likely to take up
another 140 megs of space.  Unfortunately I don't know of a formula
editor for gnome; and agnubis (presentation editor) isn't out yet and
won't be for a while.


I understand right now we're stuck with open office, and that some
people LIKE openoffice.  I still feel steps should be taken to allow
traversal to another office suite when the time comes.

Here's what I propose:  make ubuntu-desktop modular.  Make it a
meta-package that depends on other meta-packages instead of directly on
other packages, and make meta-packages which depend on other
meta-packages.  For example

ubuntu-desktop
DEPEND: ubuntu-office
DEPEND: ubuntu-groupware
DEPEND: ubuntu-misc

ubuntu-office-suite
DEPEND: ubuntu-office-openoffice.org (default)
     OR ubuntu-office-gnomeoffice

ubuntu-groupware
DEPEND: ubuntu-groupware-evolution (default)
     OR ubuntu-groupware-mozilla-lightning

ubuntu-misc
DEPEND: (everything that's left)

The defaults would go on the Ubuntu CD, while the others would go in a
second repository (online) such as "extended," which would be supported.
 Of course, this means somebody has to actually support the extended
package set; this isn't just magical crap that suddenly happens.

Initially there'd be probably only one option per meta-package (i.e.
openoffice, evolution).  The idea is to make sure the infrastructure is
ready when it's called upon.  It should also be such that ubuntu-desktop
still boils down to exactly what it would normally be by default.

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