On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 3:26 PM, Glenn Lagasse <Glenn.Lagasse at sun.com> wrote: > * Shawn Walker (swalker at opensolaris.org) wrote: > > Bugs should never be a reason to excuse promoting an application. The > > point is that GNOME as a platform has chosen Evolution. > > Right, and we as system integrators get to pick and chose what parts of > that platform we want to ship. Just like every other distribution does. > Just because a choice is made to use a platform doesn't mean one *has* > to use that platform as designed/delivered. I agree that it's a very > good idea to do so as much as possible, but I don't believe it has to > be an all or nothing affair.
To be clear, I wasn't suggesting that Evolution and/or Thunderbird wouldn't be available via the repository. I just haven't seen something that tells me that the cost of choosing something that is not part of the platform has been adequately justified. I also agree that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. However, my primary issue is that if Solaris is to succeed, it needs to become a better platform than what GNU/Linux distributors offer. Most GNU/Linux distributions *feel* like there a hodge-podge of "best of breed" applications that: * Don't work the same * Aren't well integrated into the underlying desktop (KDE or GNOME) * Don't perform equally well * Aren't equally well-documented * Don't have a consistent look and feel * Don't have the same level of integration between them I feel as though the OpenSolaris community has a chance here to show others just how good a well-integrated, polished platform can be. That means that if we choose to ship Thunderbird, instead of Evolution, in my opinion, we should be prepared to do all of the work necessary to ensure that users have an equivalent platform experience. That means that all of the platform integration Evolution has, for example, should also be present in Thunderbird. Otherwise, we are putting our users at a disadvantage. > Case in point, show me some top 5 (or top 10) linux distributions that > use Gnome as their base platform and highlights epiphany versus > firefox. I can think of only one (Debian) and it's been a while since I > verified if that's still the case. Yes, it's still the case. Though I think that may be because of the whole IceWeasel/FireFox (naming issue) incident. Nonetheless, GNU/Linux distributions have made many poor choices in this area, and I don't think they should be taken as precedent without careful forethought and consideration. > > I have used Evolution for years; since the early days when Ximian > > GNOME was popular. > > As did I (when I was bored with how well Mutt worked for me). Same here; mutt was what I used before that. > > Either way, the current choice is something that might be considered > > offensive to many developers that contribute to Evolution and is > > contrary, in my view, to embracing a platform of choice. > > I see nothing offensive about it. And to be fair, we aren't the only > ones that do this sort of thing (take bits and pieces from a particular > platform). And I disagree that in doing so we aren't embracing our > platform of choice. But that's my personal belief. I think that's one of the worst things that most GNU/Linux distributions do actually. While I don't think there's anything wrong in "picking and choosing the best for the platform"; doing so without performing the work necessary to make those new choices equivalent to the old is a mistake, in my view. > > Pushing users towards Thunderbird is pushing them towards an inferior > > experience integration-wise. > > I'm not advocating pushing users toward anything (just to be clear). > And we are in fact giving users choice by offering both thunderbird > *and* evolution. I know of at least one other (and could probably find > more if I were so inclined to go digging) unix-like distribution > (Ubuntu) that has a quick launch link to thunderbird instead of to > evolution for what it's worth. That's just it though. To me, I think it's horrible to offer (by default) multiple *desktop* applications that have large areas of overlap in functionality. Choice should be available, yes, but I don't think all of the choices should be installed by default. It's the same reason I have a real problem with the number of sound libraries, etc. that are available on the GNU/Linux platform. Trimming alternates that aren't needed would be a good way to make the LiveCD, etc. easier to support and shrink the download size. > I seem to recall we had a discussion about thunderbird and evolution > back when we were trying to figure out what to include on the livecd for > preview 1. I *think* the evidence at the time was that thunderbird was > in far greater use than evolution amongst whatever sample was used. > Whether or not that played into the decision to give it a quick launch > link over evolution I don't know but it makes sense to my mind at least. Your recollections are correct. > Anyway, to me I'm all in favor of giving as much choice as we can. We > include Evolution and Thunderbird and thus we appeal to both sets of > users. Just like Ubuntu (I believe they include both in their liveCD) > so there's some synergy there as well. I don't have any problem with giving choice. I just don't like putting that choice up front. It causes *some* users to perceive the platform as "confusing" and/or "unpolished." Mac OS X is a prime example, to me, of what a well-integrated platform *usually* looks like. One mail app, one web browser, etc. Alternates are available, but they are not present by default. -- Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/ "To err is human -- and to blame it on a computer is even more so." - Robert Orben
