Allowing apps to install packages

[Glynn Foster]

Hey,

Forgive me is there is a load of inaccuracies in this mail - I
unfortunately missed out on the desktop architects meeting at Portland,
so some of this might have already been discussed there.

On Tue, 2006-02-28 at 18:51 -0700, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Tuesday 28 February 2006 15:54, Karol Pietrzak wrote:
> >  I've actually posted about this project here a few months ago before I
> > wrote a single line of code, and my post generated very little interest. 
> > Should I ask again? :)
> 
> i'd suggest looking at integrating your work into the Portland Project[1]. 
> while this isn't on the integration tasks list[2], it would seem to fit in 
> just about perfectly.

I assume Portland is in part about writing a set of stable interfaces to
wrap the current specifications detailed out on freedesktop.org? Is that
a fair assumption? If that is indeed the case, is this going to
complement those specifications or potentially allow them to be replaced
in the future?

I'm currently working with the architecture teams within Sun [1], and
one of the things that they're struggling with are things that you've
come up with in the PortlandIntegrationTasks document. I don't think
it's from the lack of good documentation however, it's more a confidence
level, especially given the wording on the Standards page -

'These are not really standards'

How can any 3rd party vendor be expected to take these seriously? It
really feels at times that we're almost there, and may be missing
opportunity already - we have a good set of documented interfaces
available, but lack the ability to cement them down, bless them with
holy water, and lock them away behind a glass case for everyone to see.

FFS, we've had the desktop file specification around for a couple of
years, and it's *still* called a draft.

I'm sure I'm echoing what many other people have said previously, but
it's frustrating that we haven't walked the last mile when we've come
*SO* far...


Thoughts, comments appreciated.

Glynn

[1] And I'm sure it's not just Sun feeling this pain