seed changes

[Jani Monoses]

Lionel Le Folgoc wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Feb 5, 2008 2:37 PM, Jani Monoses <jani at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>> I have not seen any answers to justify the seed changes so I reverted
>> the least controversial ones to 7.10 state.
>> If there is any objection please speak now, and say which package should
>> not have been reverted today and why.
>>
>> I want to start discussing the pros and cons of keeping gnumeric/goffice
>> and evince forked and maintaining the -gtk only versions.
> 
> The patches are now upstream, so they're no extra patching work... And
> as long as Gauvain can merge them, I don't understand why we should
> drop them (and if he doesn't have the time, I'll merge them).
> Switching to the gnome build is irrelevant since a gtk only build
> exist...

I agree for evince. gnumeric and goffice are more complicated though, as 
the debian maintainer did not take them as promised and they cause 
unnecessary work every time there's a merge and for other people too 
outside Xubuntu.

I know that there is time to do these repeated tasks but in the same 
amount of time other things could possibly be done which would have more 
benefit for Xubuntu users.

I am not opposing this much, after all I started this whole -gtk only 
craze for dapper, but I see now that this is not the main area where the 
sluggishness comes from, but a large part of maintenance work still goes 
there.

> 
>> Also I want to know what are squeeze's advantages and drawbacks over
>> file-roller and why it was replaced, ommitting the argument that it is
>> made  for Xfce, as that is largely irrelevant to users.
> 
> Xubuntu ships Xfce, not Ubuntu+two or three changed packages... and

Where did you get that idea? Xubuntu should ship what is best for users 
not be guided by something as void of substance as 'ships Xfce'.
And I prefer not to reread Jerome's mails as the ones he wrote so far on 
the subject duck the issue and only contain ideology.

> no, the "Xfce argument" isn't irrelevant, please re-read Jérôme
> mails...

> If squeeze isn't stable (it crashes actually), we'll drop it of course.
> 
None of these are arguments in favor of squeeze. If it ain't broken do 
not fix it. So squeeze crashes but still you replaced a functioning and 
mature app with it, one that will get us free SRUs after release by way 
of the Ubuntu team.

I seriosly doubt you guys really consider the effect of your actions on 
the users.


>> - * (xfce4-taskmanager)
>> + * (gnome-system-monitor)
> 
> xfce4-taskmanager works fine (the hardy upload, not the
> rc-which-doesn't-exist-upstream you did upload in the previous
> release), so there's no need to use g-s-m.

There is, the same reason that was used to replace it in the first 
place. It was actually talked about in gutsy and noone objected but had 
a couple of agreements.
> 
>> - * xfce4-places-plugin
>> + * (xfce4-places-plugin)
> 
> That's enabled in the default panel, so recommending it only is rather
> illogical...

See, that is a kind of change which causes increased resource usage, as 
every extrenal panel plugin adds to the startup time and uses at least 
3-4 Megabytes. I am not saying it should not be there, but want to point 
out which are the actions that actually cause perceived bloat.
In 7.10 the applet was dropped because it crashed. Is it stable now?

> 
>> + * gnome-mount
> 
> It creates several issues with thunar, especially two dialogs showing
> up when it fails, and errors messages not correctly forwarded with
> gnome-mount.

Still better than exo which was changed because it did not integrate at 
all with fixed partition mounting of unprivileged users, CD/DVD not 
being ejectable and possibly others, for which I created patches.
It would be a shame to get back to plain exo which is pure Xfce stuff 
but does not play well with the Ubuntu base system and hence provides no 
features.

> 
>> - * xscreensaver
>> - * screensaver-default-images
>> - * xscreensaver-gl # MRS, we will only ship a subset of the
>> screensavers from rss-glx and xscreensaver
>> - * xscreensaver-data # subset package for the non-gl screensavers we ship
>> + * (gnome-screensaver)
>> + * (screensaver-default-images)
>> + * (xscreensaver-gl) # MRS, we will only ship a subset of the
>> screensavers from rss-glx and xscreensaver
>> + * (xscreensaver-data) # subset package for the non-gl screensavers we ship
> 
> Do you read bug reports?

No.

> gnome-screensaver has a big security issue with xfwm4 when compositing
> is enabled... it is transparent as well, so you can see the desktop
> through the screensaver, even if it's locked.
Is that a bug that cannot be solved? Is it in g-s-s or xfwm4? Is it 
forwared upstream? Why do you think that if one encounters a bug even a 
serious one the best action is to drop the package altogether and pick 
one that will have no security fixes afetr release?

> 
>> + * (gnome-games)
> 
> Nothing to say here, that's ok for this one.
People have been asking for it and it causes no harm.

> 
> 
> And btw, a big thanks for messing with the seeds when there are issues
> building our isos and releasing an alpha 4, really...

I had no idea, sorry. Please use the list for such 'heads up' 
situations, thanks.

Jani