GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 695225
New Mailing list: gnome-flashback-list@gnome.org
Last modified: 2013-03-20 19:27:09 UTC
Hi The Gnome Fallback session will soon be known as "Gnome Flashback", and we would like a mailing list to co-ordinate with users and developers. The list should be called: gnome-flashback-list@gnome.org in accordance with gnome mailing list name policies. The initial list admin is myself, with email address jonathan@ubuntu.com If you require any further information, please get in touch or comment on this bug.
+1 from me, in case a confirmation is needed (although I won't be involved in the effort).
There you go, a password has been e-mailed to you. cheers,
Please announce quickly because I had no idea that this was wanted, while IMO we announced pretty widely that we'd kill fallback mode.
Is there any documentation or links to discussion from active GNOME contributors related to this?
I'm getting really confused over names now. * GNOME * GNOME Classic * GNOME Flashback
So with MATE, Cinnamon and GNOME Classic, where does this fit?
We've said several times that if people wanted to step up to maintain old components, we'd be happy to have them use our infrastructure. This is what's happening here; and of course it's not an official part of GNOME. I'm not sure why this would be an issue?
The confusing thing for me is the introduction of the name "GNOME Flashback". If people want to continue development of GNOME 2 components to use in their own desktop environment, that's not an issue, and we can definitely provide infrastructure. And we could even host newly developed components for such a desktop on GNOME infrastructure. But calling such a desktop environment "GNOME X" implies that it is officially supported and on par with GNOME Classic. The decision was made to drop fallback mode explicitly so we could stop dragging along support for legacy technologies in core GNOME components like gnome-session or System Settings.
If you don't want to call it a Gnome project, then you should be less harsh on people like Ikey who forked it and called it something else (in the case of Consort/Consortium). We can document the level of support that it comes with, and in my opinion System Settings should have at least some level of awareness that it's running outside of Gnome Shell and that it should hide some entries (isn't the idea that Gnome may have different shells?) This will also not be shipped with the official Gnome distribution. Distributions will have to download the Gnome Flashback components seperately. The session files that have been dropped from core gnome will also be moved to the Gnome Flashback distribution, so no need to re-introduce that legacy code. I understand the desire to deprecate legacy code in order to lighten the load of work on current software going forward, but with this project I expect the co-operation of Gnome developers where we need to make things work. It would be horribly sub-optimal to require a fork of System Settings, for example. Also, Vincent's request for someone to take care of the old components have been very well publicised for months now. If anyone had any objections, they had ample time to voice it.
(In reply to comment #9) > We can document the level of support that it comes with, and in my opinion > System Settings should have at least some level of awareness that it's running > outside of Gnome Shell and that it should hide some entries (isn't the idea > that Gnome may have different shells?) That is not really the idea. Why hide certain settings? > I understand the desire to deprecate legacy code in order to lighten the load > of work on current software going forward, but with this project I expect the > co-operation of Gnome developers where we need to make things work. It would be > horribly sub-optimal to require a fork of System Settings, for example. > > Also, Vincent's request for someone to take care of the old components have > been very well publicised for months now. If anyone had any objections, they > had ample time to voice it. But nobody took it up until now, and meanwhile various support things have been removed. It would've been nice to hear this a bit earlier. But as said: please announce. And with that: blog post + desktop-devel-list. Otherwise people won't be aware, and you'll run into issues.
(In reply to comment #9) > If you don't want to call it a Gnome project, then you should be less harsh on > people like Ikey who forked it and called it something else (in the case of > Consort/Consortium). GNOME is not one voice. :) In the above case I believe it was Josselin, one of the initiators of this project that was critical of Ikey for forking the gnome-panel and metacity and thereby spreading the maintenance burden (and allowing SolusOS to miss out on translations). Could it be called just Flashback perhaps? To make it clear that it's not part of our official product? (I'm sure Bruce Byfield will misrepresent us regardless though ;)
I don't personally care what it's called that much, although just "Flashback" doesn't sound very descriptive. Perhaps the "Flashback Desktop Environment". I would very much like for it to be an actual Gnome project, even if it's not part of the official Gnome release. Is that at all conceptually possible? Or does Gnome just have one official product?
If we are providing infrastructure then it is associated with GNOME in some shape or manner. We're also helping to provide support for the components. I'd say we're pretty wrapped up in this project regardless of whether it is part of GNOME or or not. I would prefer to call it gnome-flashback. We're providing the infrastructure and the help. We should get the credit as well. Besides, are you planning on renaming all the binaries and replacing all the gnome-* to something else?
(In reply to comment #13) > I would prefer to call it gnome-flashback. We're providing the infrastructure > and the help. We should get the credit as well. Besides, are you planning on > renaming all the binaries and replacing all the gnome-* to something else? I disagree with your argumentation. We have loads of projects at git.gnome.org and Bugzilla. Credit? Who cares. What we support is two things: - GNOME shell - GNOME classic And with support I mean buildbots, release team attention, blocker bugs, ostree, etc. In another tracker bug various fallback mode support code has been removed. So I don't understand how just metacity and gnome-panel would still work without some additional work. But I'm not a developer, so maybe I am missing something. In any case, having such a discussion in this bug is not very helpful. Suggest a desktop-devel-list thread. I can help with the initial email. Jonathan: Please don't be discouraged by the amount of people responding. :)
(In reply to comment #9) > If you don't want to call it a Gnome project, then you should be less harsh on > people like Ikey who forked it and called it something else (in the case of > Consort/Consortium). Not calling it a GNOME project and forking are completely different things. You can still use the gnome-panel and metacity Git repositories but not prefix the name of the whole desktop environment with GNOME. The names of the binaries and the Git repositories are implementation details which most users won't notice. What they will notice is the name GNOME Xyz, and they will interpret it as an official GNOME project, which it is not. Personally, I always interpreted Vincent's request as an invitation to the MATE developers. I just find it amusing that they decided to fork the whole of GNOME 2.x without talking to anybody, and hence I am curious about the value of yet another DE with GNOME 2.x components when MATE already exists.
(In reply to comment #9) > I understand the desire to deprecate legacy code in order to lighten the load > of work on current software going forward, but with this project I expect the > co-operation of Gnome developers where we need to make things work. It would be > horribly sub-optimal to require a fork of System Settings, for example. That co-operation will be somewhat limited. You can certainly expect everything in the GTK+ stack to support other desktops to reasonable degree. Everything above that is GNOME components, not a toolbox for alternative desktops. So, the onus is on you - if you need legacy things from the GNOME stack, you will have to help shape them in a way that does not affect the rest of GNOME. E.g, if you want desktop icons to work the way they always did, contribute by moving desktop rendering out of nautilus in its own process. Etc.
Wow, I'm rather surprised by the reaction here. I believe there's a balance between the core GNOME project and the bigger GNOME community. Many of the non-core GNOME apps are in the gnome-world jhbuild packageset. I think the response here pushes the balance too far in favor of the core GNOME project by not allowing related projects to use the GNOME trademark even when it makes sense. - Are you going to request that gnome-tweak-tool change its name? There's several gnome-* apps like gnome-video-arcade, gnome-commander, etc. that seem to also violate this new unwritten policy. - Are you going to request that gnome-panel change its name? gnome-power-manager? This just adds a bunch of work for maintainers and distros for little gain. - What about the gnome-world packageset? Since it's not core GNOME, it can't use the trademark either, right? - How does this affect 'Ubuntu GNOME' which despite our best efforts will never be 100% GNOME (but then again, most "GNOME distros" aren't 100% either)? IANAL but I think the fact that GNOME Flashback uses the very same GNOME technologies (gnome-panel, metacity, nautilus-classic, etc.) that were part of core GNOME just a few months ago doesn't give GNOME developers much room to say "but you can't call it GNOME".
(In reply to comment #17) > - Are you going to request that gnome-tweak-tool change its name? There's > several gnome-* apps like gnome-video-arcade, gnome-commander, etc. that seem > to also violate this new unwritten policy. > - Are you going to request that gnome-panel change its name? > gnome-power-manager? This just adds a bunch of work for maintainers and distros > for little gain. I don't think anyone is asking for that. It is the "GNOME Flashback" name that is being contested.