Xubuntu target audience and development focus (Was: Re: Default application for IRC)

[James Freer]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014, Pasi Lallinaho wrote:

> On 2014-07-15 20:57, James Freer wrote:
>> As there's no shortage of space on the DVD iso Xubuntu could offer a setup 
>> version of emacs with email, irc (ERC), Org and other stuff. 
>
> Just because there is space is a bad argument. With that argument, you could 
> argue that anything in the repositories is suitable for including and ask it 
> being added. There needs to be some more substance into it.

That's a bit bland.  How do you explain the removal of synaptic? For searching 
and installing it is excellent, and for removal I've always found apt-get 
autoremove includes dependencies which synaptic doesn't (fully).

> In addition to that, Xubuntu does not target users with specific skill sets 
> or aptitudes (direct quote from the Strategy Document [1]), including users 
> who wish to use Emacs to do everything and anything.

I have only started using emacs. It's problem is the learning curve. The point 
I was trying to make was that it is an excellent prose editor (which is what I 
use it for), also excellent for mail, org mode and erc (IRC client). If 
installed and set up by a developer it would be an excellent feature of the 
distro. Forget some of the games, calculator, and some apps which ruin it 
(imo). Many folk are put off Vim and Emacs because of the learning curve and 
complexity of the app to the beginner. So a well tailored 'customised' version 
would be an asset.

> Please let's try to keep our target audience and our areas of focus in mind 
> and avoid any unnecessary traffic on the development list.

The purpose of discusion is to seek ways to make a good distro even better. 
Which image viewer does batch rename and watermaking... as I've discovered 
recently eog. Small, fast and fit for purpose.

> Kindly,
> Pasi