Re: Proposed: evolution

[Seth Nickell <snickell gmail com>]

On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 23:52:38 +1000, Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org> wrote:
> <quote who="Thomas Vander Stichele">
> 
> > (btw, I'd LOVE to see Evolution in the desktop.  So I'm hoping the evo
> > hackers realize this is an important blocker.)
> 
> Should we consider this as a "blocker", or consider the wider issues that
> the Evolution team need to deal with? This is a very major addition to the
> Desktop release, and an interesting transition for the Evolution team. Maybe
> we should be willing to cut them a little slack on this one.

I'm not concerned with this setting a precedent for other apps. It
would be understandable to have one or two areas where a very large
codebase may diverge from some of the stuff we've established for
GNOME releases.

What concerns me is the precedent this sets for Evolution itself. Is
this indicative of a general problem we are going to have where the
whole platform gets a change made but evolution hangs back? Its not a
particularly hard change to make technically, but Evolution appears to
have a requirement the rest of the platform does not have ("runs on
old GNOME releases"). We've always maintained backward compat in the
libraries, but not in the apps. This seems like it should be part of
the transition for the Evo team. Realistically, Evo gets included with
every GNOME using distro anyway. So what does it mean to be a part of
GNOME if not to follow GNOME policies and initiatives?

#ifdef'ing seems ok, but I'd like the default stance to be "works with
the latest GNOME release and if we can make it run on old GNOME
releases all the better". Not, "we make it work on old GNOME releases
and make it use the nice new stuff if possible". For example, if the
HIG adds some new non-technical guideline, and the Desktop shifts to
using it.... will Evo shift despite the new guideline making evo not
fit on old GNOME?

I'd like to explore issues like that before deciding we'll fudge "on
this specific case".

-Seth