Untz: Results of the App Installer meeting, and some thoughts on cross-distro collaboration

Posted Jan 26, 2011 4:29 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313)
In reply to: Untz: Results of the App Installer meeting, and some thoughts on cross-distro collaboration by nevyn
Parent article: Untz: Results of the App Installer meeting, and some thoughts on cross-distro collaboration

I'll point out that KDE and Gnome are cooperating, that's what freedesktop.org is all about, they are working to define the underlying pieces in a way that they can both live with, even if the implementation and visible result is significantly different between the two.

Ubuntu is straying from this a bit, but unless they get buy-in from lots of application developers to write to a different, Ubuntu specific API, it won't stay separate long term (it may be that Ubuntu moves back to mechanisms that currently exist, or it may be that some of the things that Ubuntu is trying become standard and the other desktops start supporting them)

Untz: Results of the App Installer meeting, and some thoughts on cross-distro collaboration

Posted Jan 26, 2011 15:46 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

freedesktop.org often looks a lot more like 'GNOME people define stuff, KDE people use it'. GNOME people get their stuff in without effort: when KDE people try, all too often there is endless argument and nothing happens.

Untz: Results of the App Installer meeting, and some thoughts on cross-distro collaboration

Posted Jan 28, 2011 4:08 UTC (Fri) by markshuttle (guest, #22379) [Link]

Much of the Unity work in Ubuntu is based on FreeDesktop.org collaboration with, amongst others KDE, and it's Gnome which has decided to purse a different course.

The Ubuntu indicators framework, for example, was developed in Ubuntu after discussions with Gnome developers, and was also developed in collaboration with KDE developers. When it was ready, Gnome Shell said they had decided to do something different altogether. It's a little perverse to be accused of being uncollaborative when you:

o discuss work in advance with the Gnome team and get a go-ahead to drive forward
o collaborate with other communities like KDE in designing the framework
o deliver what you promised
o then get told that Gnome's designers have changed their mind and will pursue a course that reflects neither the agreement nor a new consensus across platforms ;-), and
o get rejected when you propose the framework for inclusion as a Gnome external dependency!

The dynamics of collaboration in open source are fluid and complex. There's a lot that happens which is constructive, and there are also things that make everyone want to despair. But it's simply inaccurate to paint one group as a primary bad guy; much just depends on who was where at the time.