gnome apps

[Jani Monoses]

Jérôme Guelfucci wrote:
> I know I've not been very diplomatic. Well the point is that this
> mailing list DOESN'T represent the Xubuntu community. The decisions
> that were taken during the Gutsy development cycle were validated
> because you and two or three members of the mailing list wanted this,
> this is at least how I feel it.

We had discussions but none of the views opposing the inclusion of Gnome
apps were fundamented, besides the vague 'it's ligher' argument and most
of the replies were clearly emotional.

> 
> On the Ubuntu French Forums, the feedbacks I had is that people are
> using Xubuntu because it's light, it's a godd alternative to Gnome,
> BUT many of them were disappointed because Xubuntu 7.10 is tto heavy
> and moved to things like Fluxbuntu, or removed the xubuntu-desktop
> package to keep xfce only stuff, and choose apps they wanted.

All changes have been in the default install but in the recommends 
section so noone should have removed xubuntu-meta, all the extra gnome 
apps cand be removed and swicthed if the more advanced users wish so.

I am pretty convinced that the ones who were vocal on the fora and 
disappointed were the armchair critics who do not look much into an 
issue before blogging or voicing their dissapointment. Like with the 
recent reactions to 'Canonical dropping support for Xubuntu'.


> 
> Now that we moved to Universe, we have the opportunity to build a
> Xubuntu identity, to have our own applications easily, without filing
> MIR all the time. I think it's unfair to say that those applications

That is the great advantage of being in universe and I am glad for this,
filing MIR was an annoyance. However it does not mean the floodgates are
open to anything that is now in universe without regard to user 
friendliness and robustness.

> are unmaintained (xfmedia will be removed soon :) ), and buggy, they
> seem to work fine for most users. We have backported a lot of stuff to
> our ppa, XFCE 4.4.2, squeeze, ristretto, and we received very positive
> feedback from the community.
> 
I appreciate your work, it's just that it has to happen in public. 
Please do not mix Xfce 4.4.2 into this I did not say anything about it
But the apps that I one-by-one picked and the merits of which I 
defended during gutsy are a separate problem.



> I recognize it could have been announced on the mailing list or on
> IRC, but the few time I've spent on this list shows me that most of
> those posts become ~ a XFCE/GNOME flamewar.

No that is not a reason to avoid it. It does not create a good 
precedent. It is only flamewar if the focus is not on techincal, 
maintenance and user merits but on GNOME vs Xfce. In which case those 
who can only contribute to the latter topics are gently asked to stay 
out of the discussion and we can keep it civilized.

Please justify the switch to each of the apps as I did last cycle, 
taking into accound maintenance - upstream and withing ubuntu, 
usability, stability/maturity and performance.

thanks
Jani