Commit notifications for specs

[Brian J. Tarricone]

Rodrigo Moya wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-04-30 at 10:48 -0700, Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
>> Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
>>
>>> at one point we must realize the fact that GNOME and KDE are built on
>>> two very different platforms; sharing specifications is possible - even
>>> welcomed, but sharing API is only possible at a very low level.
>> Thank you!  Hearing someone actually say this is like a breath of fresh air.
>>
>> I'd question whether or not we even *want* to harmonise these sorts of 
>> things between desktop environments.  Part of their strength lies in 
>> their foundation libraries and infrastructure.
>>
> I don't think this is true. Part of their strength relies on features
> for users, not on low-level APIs, so unless we really get over this way
> of thinking, I doubt we'll be able to beat other non-free desktops :-)

Sure, *part* of their strength, but not all of it.  How does everyone 
using the same foundation libraries and toolkits (or different libraries 
that share a common API) automatically make the user experience better?

The user-visible features are enabled by the foundation libraries. 
Harmonising these just reduces opportunities to innovate and look at 
solving problems in new and different ways.  This is one of the big 
strengths of open source, IMO, and I'd rather not get derailed over some 
non-goal of beating other non-free desktops.  YMMV, of course.

Not to mention that GNOME and KDE aren't the only desktops out there...

	-brian