<br><br> <div class="gmail_quote">On Nov 10, 2007 7:11 PM, Diego Ongaro <<a href="mailto:ongardie@gmail.com">ongardie@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Before this gets out of hand, let me try to mediate. To summarize the<br>discussion so far:<br>- My suggestion was to not waste too much effort on something that <br>will be fixed in 4.6, namely panel sizing.<br>- Jelle's suggestion was that branding should happen in Xubuntu; any<br>other development should happen upstream, collaborating with Xfce.<br>- Jmak's response was that it is necessary make progress directly in <br>Xubuntu to meet users' demands and stay competitive.<br><br>I think there is something to be learned from all of this:<br>*I* posted above explaining panel sizing in 4.6. I know about that<br>because I idle in irc.freenode.net#xfce-dev and keep up with the Xfce<br>project that way. Regardless of whether or not Xubuntu takes my<br>suggestion to not waste effort on the matter of panel sizing, it is<br>important for everyone involved in that decision to consider <br>upstream's work and plans. Similarly, if Xubuntu were to want to put<br>effort into the matter, the panel developers upstream (Nick, Jasper)<br>would be the best people to ask for advice. They know the code<br>inside-out and can tell you what will work well and what won't, <br>without any research.<br><br>So, the lesson I ask you (Xubuntu) to take from this is: communicate<br>with upstream to learn about Xfce's plans and discuss Xubuntu's plans.<br>Both projects would benefit.<br><br> I've already suggested one way to communicate with upstream, their IRC<br>channel. You'll find that if you enter it (as Cody Somerville did<br>yesterday), you will not have voice (be allowed to send messages).<br> Even with this restriction, you will be able to learn about Xfce's<br>plans. It's the best place to hear what people are currently working<br>on. To discuss Xubuntu's plans, you should use the developer's mailing <br>list [1]. It's also a good place to hear about longer-term plans and<br>discussions. Once you build up an identity and a bit of a reputation<br>with the Xfce developers, they will be willing to grant you voice in<br> their IRC channel (you might have to ask, though).<br><br>One final thing: you might find some anti-Xubuntu sentiment upstream.<br>From my observations, this can stem from two issues:<br>(1) Some upstream developers believe a distro should not substantially <br>modify packages<br>(2) Most upstream developers believe Xubuntu does not try to get its<br>patches into Xfce (upstream)<br><br>IMHO, you should deal with (1) by ignoring it. It goes against the<br>Ubuntu philosophy, so don't worry about it. It's also more of a naming <br>thing. They really mean Xubuntu isn't a "distro," since it does more<br>than distribute software.<br><br>You should deal with (2) by creating evidence to show that it's false.<br>For example, make your first post to the xfce-dev mailing list a <br>discussion of an existing Xubuntu-only patch that Xfce could benefit<br>from. You might be told to start a bug report; that's fine, everyone<br>on the mailing list still saw one more example of Xubuntu working to<br> get its patches into Xfce. Then follow through with it.<br><br>I think I've made it clear that more communication with Xfce<br>(upstream) is important and beneficial to Xubuntu. And I've explained<br>exactly how to do that, based on my experience. I hope I haven't <br>offended anyone in this email, and I hope to see more Xubuntu<br>representation on the Xfce communications channels.<br></blockquote> <div> </div> <div>Diego,</div> <div> </div> <div>Thank you. That was very useful. I've been lingering about on some Xfce mailinglist (have to check if I'm subscribed to xfce4-dev though) but I never even thought about joining their IRC channel. Will do that :) </div> <div> </div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><span id=""></span><br>-Diego Ongaro<br><br>[1] <a href="http://foo-projects.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce4-dev/" target="_blank"> http://foo-projects.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce4-dev/</a><br> <div> <div></div> <div class="Wj3C7c"> </div></div></blockquote></div> <div><br><br> </div> <div class="gmail_quote">On Nov 10, 2007 8:31 PM, jmak <<a href="mailto:jozmak@gmail.com">jozmak@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"> <div> <div></div> <div class="Wj3C7c"> </div></div>When I started this discussion about xubuntu's look and feel, my<br>initial proposal was to go back to the original layout, because that<br>is how xfce was conceived at the first place.  Do not force something <br>upon it that was not designed for. It is now obvious that xfce, at its<br>current state, cannot function properly as a gnome layout but pretty<br>well as a one at the bottom panel arrangement. If we go back to this,<br> all the problems discussed in the past couple of days will go away.<br>The solution is so simple.</blockquote> <div> </div> <div>Jozsef,</div> <div> </div> <div>I really feel that you are letting your personal preference play way too big a role in this issue. Xfce's panels *where* designed to be able to be used the way Xubuntu uses them now. It is far from obvious to me why it cannot function properly in this layout. I *do* see why a dock-arrangement would be a source of trouble to new users ( i.e. they have to guess an application's function by its icon). I also don't see why upstream would want us to use that arrangement. </div> <div> </div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><span id=""></span><br>-- <br>Vincent </blockquote></div>