My solicitation for themes for the GNOME 2.4 release notes has yielded a singularly lackluster discussion, which in and of itself is illustrative. But a few possible slogans have emerged from the hurly-burly:
But perhaps I’m just feeling cynical.
Starting to work in earnest on the GNOME 2.4 release notes, I sent the following note to the desktop-devel list:
Last time ’round, the main theme of the release notes was “usability,
performance, appearance, and accessibility support”. If we had a slogan,
it was a desktop that “just works”. What is the dominant theme of the
2.4? What should we be pimping here?
Some answers:
How about “April Fresh”?
“August fresh”?
If I was truly a leet haxor I would know how to properly spell “leat hacksor”, but at the very least I now know how to do a module release. Mikael Hallendal is otherwise occupied, and Shaun realized last night we really need to do a release of Yelp, what with Shaun having done a metric buttload of work on it that deserves testing. So after whining a bit in an unsuccessful attempt to get someone else to do a release, I found Mark Mc’s guide to how to do a release, poked Jeff Waugh a few times on the tricky bits, and did it. I am 1337. Or something.
The most amazing bit? I actually had an account already on widget. And I actually remembered my password.
Trying to make the most of my sick days, I’ve been poking around in the GNOME 2.4 docs build infrastructure. Gedit is done, I took a look around gnome-session and figured out what old cruft can be removed, and I’m now in the midst of gnome-applets. They’re the cruftiest of all, which is why I’ve procrastinated so long. If my quick automated analysis is correct, there are 138 docs in the package (including translations), and each has a Makefile.am that needs updating. I’m working on a script now that should do it all in bulk, though given my modest skills it’s always a tradeoff – how long does it take to figure out how to make the script work, versus how long it takes to do it all by hand.
I suppose no matter what, script is still cooler, and the Right Way(tm).
So I finally seem to have overcome whatever auto* voodoo was standing in the way of my GNOME 2.3.x build. My solution was thus:
This doesn’t mean I’ve got a working setup yet, but I’ve now got a terminal window open and building stuff at all times, and I’m in that state where I’ll leave it running churning through the build scripts when I go out, hoping the magic will be done when I get back.
I got the “here’s what we need to do” mail out to the list Tuesday, hinting broadly at the grunt work required. Little useful response so far, except the usual “I’d like to do docs for the flubberwidget” from a newcomer, followed by the, “We’re already doing them, sorry,” from the Sun people. And now that I can (sorta) build stuff, I got started redoing the docs build infrastructure using Malcolm’s new white magic.
Update:
Got a working G2.3.x to show y’all:
I think you are being a tad cynical. The most visible improvements are the multimedia applications which have matured since 2.2. Totem, Rhythmbox, and gstreamer have all matured. We’ve added Epiphany to the multimedia mix too. I haven’t entered this discussion, but I think the slogan should be:
Gnome 2.4: The Complete Desktop
Gnome 2.4: The Multimedia Desktop
Gnome 2.4: The Desktop That Rocks
Gnome 2.4: Rock, Work, and Surf
Yes, there are a lot of improvements as well as a lot of bugfixes, and new appls too. It just takes a while to gather the information together.
But rhythmbox isn’t part of the GNOME Desktop, and totem/gstreamer is still in doubt, so gstreamer improvements might not be very visible.
I didn’t mean to be dissing 2.4 either. It was just such a funny discussion. Every time one person suggested a theme (“enterprise”, “a11y”, etc.), someone else would shoot it down. However we word things, I think the suggestion is that there is no drama with this release, just a lot of really good incremental improvements.
“Gnome 2.4: A Solid Foundation for Gnome 2.6.”
🙂
I always liked “So powerful, you could skip a day” as a slogan… there’s a generator out there, although I’ve lost the URl…
Found it: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/slogan
There’s First Love, and There’s Gnome Love.