DE discussion summary

Josh Boyer jwboyer at fedoraproject.org
Mon Feb 10 21:14:13 UTC 2014


On Feb 10, 2014 10:07 AM, "Colin Walters" <walters at verbum.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 8:54 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at fedoraproject.org>
wrote:
>>
>> So, we really kind of need to settle on something and get started.
>
>
> I find the idea that the long and historic relationship between GNOME and
Fedora could turn around so quickly like that to be very strange - it's a
bit like having a friend who suddenly meets someone else they find
interesting, and maybe you get a polite wave when you're passing.
>
> You'd be left wondering what you did wrong...

I think (hope?) I addressed this part in my reply to Richard.

> Further, I really dislike the mindset where it's all about switching
between pre-formed but completely different things.  There is a whole
spectrum of options in between, such as small forking.
>
> I think this is something where technology drives culture - packages
*punish* forking - you have to tediously rename all of the upstream source
code so that the files don't stomp on each other, just for the completely
obscure use case of having multiple desktops "installed" at the same time.
>
> Which then in turn makes it *much, much harder* to merge back.  Instead,
packages reward writing completely new implementations.   Of course, I come
at this from the OSTree perspective, which makes it pretty easy to have
scalable branches that you can switch between, instead of requiring
co-installation.
>
> And finally, the relative omission of the fact that Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 7 has *already forked* in this discussion is kind of odd, to say the
least.  Personally I think classic mode is a visible symbol of the
malfunctioning feedback mechanism.  Or really, not even feedback - it
should be about cooperation, with actual *code* flowing both ways.

I agree that the small forking possibility is extremely important here.
This is not a "pick an upstream and ship it" effort.  We are looking for a
basis to start from.  The ability to modify to best meet our end goals is
key and that will include adaptations and small diversions in whatever
upstream is used.

Your comments around packaging and ostree are certainly valid as well, but
I would prefer to tackle one problem at a time :).

josh
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