Icon Name Standardization, second draft

[Frans Englich]

On Monday 04 April 2005 10:35, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-03-24 at 04:08 +0000, Frans Englich wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > Finally, here's a second draft of the icon name standardization. Attached
> > is a patch against the docbook source in CVS. I will follow up this post
> > with an XHTML rendering. I'll provide a diff against the previous patch
> > applied, on request.
>
> I commited all the language fixes and the context explanation to cvs,
> but not the icon name thing, as there seems to be further discussion on
> this.

Yes, makes sense, of course.

> Is dobeys proposal related to yours, or is that a competing proposal?

I don't know. In a letter where I wrote I would incorporate discussions in a 
third draft, Rodney replied "However, I am going to be writing up a full 
formal spec draft" and I don't know how that relates to my work; whether the 
two proposals should "compete" from here, or if it should be understood that 
Rodney "continues" from here. Currently, I will not provide any more drafts. 
But nevertheless, I personally like the current development and where it's in 
broad terms heading, I don't see large differences between mine and Rodney's 
proposals.

>
> Anyway, one thing I agree with Dobey on is that the icon naming standard
> should be in its own document. The current icon theming spec is  widely
> deployed and pretty stable, while the icon name standardization is (for
> now at least) debated about, actively worked on with large changes, and
> not yet deployed, used or tested. I think it makes more sense for this
> to be a separate document during the time its being worked on at least.
> When it is a widely deployed working standard we could perhaps merge the
> two.

Yes, the name standardization is a large change and its development should not 
interfere the stable specification or current deployments. However, when 
doing large changes, it's usually done by branching, not starting a new 
project.

I would say, freeze the current specification, copy it in CVS, and upon that 
copy(or CVS branch) build a "next-generation" icon theme spec which simply is 
a large patch on top of the current spec, and version it "0.7.draft-3"[1]. 
When it have stabilized and is considered ready for prime time, fold it back 
into main line. Afterall, what is an icon name standardization about, if not 
icons and themes.

In other words, no, I still don't understand why the icon name standardization 
should be a new, separate specification, except for practical measures to 
ensure the current version is not disturbed. It will be big in either case. 

That's an area I find important; that we don't break backwards compatibility, 
and try to be as "light" and non-intrusive as possible.


Cheers,

		Frans

1.
As per the versioning scheme Waldo recently suggested on this list.