seed changes

[Jim Campbell]

Hi All,

On 2/5/08, Jérôme Guelfucci <jerome.guelfucci at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> yep, there is a leader and it's not Jani :) It's Lionel, a guy that
> does something else than modifying feeds.


From what I know, Jani has done a whole heck of a lot to get Xubuntu
started.  We can't underemphasize that.

I don't know all of who was involved from the start, but without Jani's
initial efforts, there might not have been a Xubuntu.  He deserves respect
for that reason.



That being said, Jani did say that he was going to stop involvement with
Xubuntu for this release.  I'm sure that someone can look up the note on the
ML archives.  And I think Lionel really has been the primary packager for a
good while now.  The amount of work that he has done has been truly
remarkable.  He deserves respect for that, too.  And we all see the regular
names in the mailing list – I won't mention anyone by name here for fear of
leaving someone out.



There's been a lot of back and forth, but it does just seem like there's an
ideological conflict in regards to what packages are included in a default
Xubuntu installation.  Some individuals are on the side of keeping Xubuntu
as Xfce-based as possible, even if it means a little less functionality.  It
seems like they see adding gnome-based applications as watering down the
whole purpose of Xubuntu, they want to keep things lighter than they are in
gnome.  Others are in favor of adding a few more gnome-based applications –
even if it means that Xubuntu might use up a few more system resources, the
OS would be more user friendly . . . .  Also under consideration is whether
an application just feels faster/slower or actually is faster/slower.
Bugginess
and practical considerations such as the amount of time required to update
packages and merge patches also come into play . . .   There's a number of
perspectives and issues here.  That is fine.



But until we get this settled, until we get a common approach to application
selection that we can come to terms with as a team (even if not everyone
agrees 100%), I feel like we're going to keep facing these same discussions
release after release.  It seems like a waste of time, and it creates bad
feelings amongst each other, and toward the project.



What can we do?  Can we create test cases for possible app inclusion?  Would
there be individuals willing to test particular apps head-to-head in VM's
and report back on their findings?  I'm a bit inexperienced in this regard,
but are their app testing tools that can measure the performance and
resource usage of a particular application and its dependencies?  This could
be something where we can have a set window of time to propose new
applications, a set window of time to test them and report back . . . etc.



The current set of people who are doing the packaging and updates might not
like this – it might slow them down, and they already do enough work
already.  The above items are something that non-packagers could get
involved with if shown how to do it, though (at least told what apps might
be helpful in benchmarking other apps . . . ).  It would be something that
I'd be willing to help out on.  Comments, suggestions?



Thanks, all,



Jim
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