On 2014-11-04 14:51, Liviu Andronic wrote:
On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Sean Davis <[email protected]> wrote:
Using the Software Center does not require a Launchpad account, but signing
in gives you the ability to sync packages across multiple computers and
purchase some non-free software (several games, legal codecs, etc).
But that's the point, really. It's as evil as Google requiring a Gmail
account to install software on Android phones, even if it concerns
only a subset of packages in Xubuntu's case. With Synaptic no such
"must sign-in" restrictions exist, and in an open-source environment
this really is how it should be.
You can not install the mentioned non-free stuff with Synaptic, so there
really isn't a drawback with Ubuntu Software Center (later: USC) here,
the contrary really: USC brings you two more features: allowing you to
install even more applications (the non-free stuff mentioned) and
syncing to other computers.
Xfce is one of the last refuges from
corporate takeover in the open-source world, and I would hope Xubuntu
to share (at least partly) Xfce's philosophy and drive. So far we've
been spared from the Apple-ization at Xfce, be it smartphone
user-interface or closed iTunes-like environment, and I expect Xubuntu
to stay true to that.
As I said, and as is implied, there is no sign-in required for Xubuntu,
or USC (which Xubuntu) uses, it's only exclusively used to get access to
extra features.
Xubuntu is not a direct output channel for Xfce; if we disagree with
something that's in Xfce, we can and will consider dropping that feature
or component. That's even written in our Strategy Document [1]. We do
share many of the ideas with the Xfce team, and heavily participate in
Xfce development, but expecting us to "stay true to the Xfce truth"
generally does sound a bit off.
It might not be the best for power users, but thankfully searching for
"Synaptic" provides Synaptic and Muon, so users can still find and use what
they want.
Sure, but again that's the issue, really. "Default" users will simply
be confronted with, well, default package selection. If you present
users with USC by default, they wouldn't know that other means to
installing packages exist.
The documentation points out that users can use APT for package
management and points to the APT manual.
And this isn't just about power users. If
you were a novice, how would you know beforehand that a saner way to
install packages, that requires no pesky sign-ins and tied to very
specific internet services, exists?
Again, no sign-in is required for USC, and it's not tied to any specific
internet service, except the mirrors you download the archives from.
And how would you know that the
damn thing is called... yup you guessed it... "synaptic"? No one knows
this other than long-time power users...
USC and other package managers have search features which can also
search in the package descriptions. In this regard, Synaptic is no
better than USC.
And furthermore, in the same spirit, how would anybody know the vector
image editing software is called Inkscape?
I know that it must come across differently, but I'm doing my best not
to rant here. :) I guess my proposal would be that if Canonical
insists (read: forces) subsidiary projects to use USC by default,
perhaps we should consider also shipping Synaptic at the same time. I
understand the shivers that shipping two default tools for the same
job must provoke in developers, but in this case it is a necessity
IMO. It is after all an essential bit of the OS.
Canonical does not force us to ship USC. I don't completely understand
who are you proposing to seeding Synaptic for?
For novice users, I would say USC is better than or at least as good as
Synaptic in the majority of cases. Is Synaptic as intuitive to them as
it is to you?
For power users, we already have apt-get (and point that in the
documentation, if they aren't power users enough to know that it's
installed). If a power user prefers Synaptic, they ought to know how to
install it and will to that in 5 minutes. If there's a power user who
doesn't know about Synaptic, they should be able to find it in a
reasonable amount of time; if not, I'd argue they're not really a power
user.
Cheers,
Pasi
[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu/StrategyDocument#The_Target
--
Pasi Lallinaho (knome) » http://open.knome.fi/
Leader of Shimmer Project » http://shimmerproject.org/
Ubuntu member, Xubuntu team member » http://xubuntu.org/
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