Time for me to say something

[Daniel Stone]

On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 06:07:13PM +1100, Brad Hards wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 15:33 pm, Daniel Stone wrote:
> > So, I guess I should say something. The reaction from the KDE side, as
> > best I can tell from kde-core-devel archives and various postings/IRC
> > messages everywhere, is that more clarification is needed. So, this mail
> > is just stepping through and clarifying various stuff, for the time
> > being.
> - From jdub's talk at LCA:
> KDE == cautiously pessamistic?
> Gnome == incautiously delerious?

It wasn't meant to say anything other than the facts: those are the
reactions, and I think it's mostly the KDE guys that expressed the need
for explanation. So, explanation.

> > There also seems to be the impression that the platform is set in stone
> > and there's a conspiracy to force stuff on people. It's not. I'm not
> > here to dictate[1] - I'm here to consult, first. There are some very
> > core items I have decided upon, but the rest is open. The only core
> > items I have are xlibs, D-BUS and Cairo.
> It might be worth explaining why those things (and also, why not others).

As for xlibs, I don't think there's a whole lot of explanation needed.
XFree86's license is GPL-incompatible. This includes the libs, so it's
actually illegal to run KDE now if you use anything under XFree86's 1.1
license. We're also actually maintaining these libs upstream, and are
working on trimming their size, making them quicker, et al.

I personally think D-BUS is non-negotiable because it's used for HAL and
friends, KDE have a migration plan, and last I checked, GNOME were
planning to migrate, too (please correct me if I'm wrong). I also think
it's an excellent chance at unification - if you do stuff like say "hey,
turn on my screensaver, change my background and I want to change my
proxy settings", D-BUS is a really good idea for this (IMHO). I think it
would be a tragedy if we didn't start pimping D-BUS now.

As for Cairo, there's really no competition in the space: GhostScript
and libart are terrible. If you don't believe me, check out Keith's
presentation from LCA. I think having these sort of primitives around is
pretty important; then again, I'm not a graphics programmer. Nor do I
even resemble one. I'm just deferring to vast experience here. ;)

> > I also have some questions: where do people feel the relevance in the
> > platform lies? Which modules should be in? How often should releases be
> > made? et cetera.
> I'm thinking that some of the really common libs are also worth packaging, 
> even if you don't hold them locally. bzlib, libpng, that sort of thing. Given 
> a kernel, a compiler and libc, get the stuff I'm going to need to build KDE 
> or Gnome. OK, so it won't be that clear....

Interesting; I think a lot of this ground is covered by distributions
already, but I'm having trouble thinking of 'why not'. 

> Does Gnome have a pre-requisites list? If so, the intersection of that list 
> and http://www.kde.org/info/requirements/3.2.php is probably a good start.

*nod*. GNOMErs?

> > OK, so here are the list of proposed modules:
> >   * xlibs:
> >     + freedesktop.org xlibs. Forked from XFree86 some time ago, working
> >       on merging in XFree86 changes between then and the license change.
> >       Not affected by the license change. Plans to remain with the same
> >       license. Work underway to trim down the size of codebase, open to
> >       new enhancements upon request. Recently released 1.0, most major
> >       distros plan for adoption at some stage.
> Just to be clear, does this mean only Xlib? Or other standard X libraries as 
> well?
> Needs a strong maintainer. Who ya got?

It's most of the core X libraries. In our 1.0 release, we have ICE, SM,
X11, Xau, Xaw, Xcomposite, Xcursor, Xdamage, Xdmcp, Xfixes, Xfont, Xft,
Xi, Xmu, Xpm, Xrandr, Xrender, Xres, Xt, Xtrans, Xv, XExtensions, and
Xproto. These are maintained by a variety of people, including Keith
Packard and Jim Gettys (almost all of the libs between them), Jeremy
Reed, and myself. I think the first two are at least reasonably strong.
;)

The development team also includes Chris Lee, Warren Turkal, and others.
It's been adopted by FreeBSD already, and there are packages (at least
in some form) for most all distributions. As I said before, most of the
others have migration plans.

> >   * xserver:
> But probably not first time around?

Not until it's in a more usable shape, no.

> >   * D-BUS:
> Needed.

Yay.

> >   * HAL:
> Probably a bit early. Also, what about udev?

Well, it depends what sort of release timeline we're talking about. I
don't see why udev shouldn't be included, either. 

> >   * Cairo:
> I liked it too, but it isn't clear where it is going to fit into KDE. Probably 
> needs to mature - maybe a couple of separate releases?

Cairo will need at least one release before it gets in, yeah. As for
KDE, doesn't it do a whole bunch of SVG stuff? AFAICT, KSVG could
(should?) also be migrated to use Cairo instead of libart.

> >   * XDG/Startup-Notification/Systray/etc.
> >     + Various freedesktop.org standards. Every desktop should (and does,
> >       pretty much) support these.
> What does that look like in code terms? 

Not a lot - IIRC they're all just standards for .desktop files/window
managers/system trays to follow.

> > There are more, which seem to be controversial, so I'll gether them and
> > start separate threads. Or, if anyone wants to start *separate* threads
> > on scrollkeeper/intltool, please feel free.
> Package it separately, call it optional, and tell people to FOAD if they get 
> too upset by the label.

The thing about a platform, though, is that it's a single unified
platform. You don't have 'optional' bits. Or do you?

> Other stuff to think about / discuss:
> MIME .desktop files?

XDG.

> Freetype?

Hmm, probably a good idea.

> Fonts?

Yes, definitely. Anyone know some good collections?

> XML (libxml/libxslt) libs?

Quite possibly a good idea, yes.

> OpenGL?

I think we could con the DRI guys into this one.

Cheers, and thanks for the input!
:) d

-- 
Daniel Stone                                            <daniel at freedesktop.org>
freedesktop.org: powering your desktop                http://www.freedesktop.org
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