LWN.net Logo

GNOME Shell

GNOME Shell

Posted Apr 21, 2010 22:14 UTC (Wed) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639)
In reply to: GNOME Shell by sladen
Parent article: Shuttleworth: Ubuntu's Indicator Menus

Please correct me if I'm wrong... but neither Docky nor Gnome-Do have been accepted as official gnome components or even as external dependencies under the definition of the Gnome desktop as defined by the Gnome Project.

To my understanding neither gnome-do nor docky have been proposed for inclusion into the GNOME desktop in this round of module proposals even though I've seen some sidebar discussion around such a proposal. gnome-do which docky depends on overlaps with gnome-shell, so again, just like with libappindicate its not clear how docky/gnome-do integrate with the Gnome 3.0 roadmap.

What I see happening is that Canonical is intent on creating a differentiated desktop environment that is distinct from what the GNOME upstream project is doing. And that's fine and dandy... but how much differentiation can they do and still claim its a GNOME desktop? Its one thing to add optional components that extend the GNOME desktop. Its quite another to deliberately remove components that are part of the GNOME platform and tell application writers they cannot rely on that standard GNOME functionality to be present. And that's what they are doing with the notification tray removal.

-jef


(Log in to post comments)

GNOME Shell

Posted Apr 22, 2010 16:05 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Well I don't think that Gnome has really had that hard and fast rules to what is 'Gnome' or not.

Only so much what is in the default Gnome.

Just because people almost never ship what is in the default Gnome setup. The most common modifications are to use Firefox instead of Epiphany and add on OpenOffice.org, but there are lots of other mods people do. Themes, configuration tools, default configurations of gnome applications.

And I have not seen any Gnome devs complaining about or anything. At least nothing beyond ignoring pathes for PA and breaking it with bad configurations and such, or occasional input into things like the 'Ubuntu Button Placement' drama.

That and they occasionally bring back in mods and add-ons into to the project's default installs. The biggest example is Novell's Gnome C# support and Tomboy.

That and they have support for lots of things that are not part of the default install. Like all the other language bindings besides C, Python, and C#.

So i don't think that Ubuntu is doing anything weird or unusual here. Maybe they could be working closer with upstream, or maybe not. I don't know, but the most important thing that Ubuntu can do is get it done and out there as quickly as possible so that they can get lots of feedback.

GNOME Shell

Posted Apr 22, 2010 16:12 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

It's one thing to replace default gnome applications with others put to leave the gnome application as optional. Like when firefox replaced epiphany. Does such a switch really impact application developers who are writing to the specifications set down by the gnome project? No.

It's quite another to tell developers point blank that a framework component like the notification area won't be included at all for users to optionally put back on their gnome panel even its its not there by default and they they must adapt to the unilateral decision making of Canonical regardless of what the GNOME project has defined as its development framework.

-jef

Copyright © 2013, Eklektix, Inc.
Comments and public postings are copyrighted by their creators.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds