Re: 3.8 "feature": Drop or Fix Fallback Mode

[Brian Cameron <brian cameron oracle com>]

The Solaris Sun Ray product does not yet support OpenGL (or the Xserver
Composite extension).  The main desktop products that Solaris supports
are all run on Sun Ray.

So, if GNOME evolves so that it has no support for machines that do not
support OpenGL, then this will further complicate the future of the
GNOME desktop on Solaris.

There have been discussions about making Sun Ray support OpenGL and/or
the Xserver composite extension, but it is hard to predict how these
decisions might go, or how long implementing any decision might take.
llvmpipe has been discussed as a solution, but it unfortunately does
not seem a useful solution when the server is running Sparc hardwae.

In past discussions with the GNOME Foundation board of directors, I
have highlighted that the Oracle desktop team would like to get more
involved with doing tasks that are needed to continue supporting
fallback mode, with no concrete response.  Below you say there is an
interest in getting more people involved, so I am interested to hear
what specific help is needed.

Brian


On 10/22/12 09:55 AM, Vincent Untz wrote:
> The discussion about features is supposed to heat up next week, but I'll
> actually be offline. So I'd like to start discussion on the fallback
> mode today.
>
> First of all, go read the wiki page:
>   https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode
>
> It more or less documents the current situation with the fallback mode.
> And I'm of the opinion that we can't accept this situation for 3.8
> anymore.
>
> So, the two alternatives I can think of are:
>
>   a) get more people to work on the fallback mode so that it has a high
>      enough quality and follows the current vision of the project
>
>   b) do not have a fallback mode anymore (or at least, not the current
>      one...)
>
> (if anyone can think of another option, please raise your voice)
>
> Please note that option b doesn't necessarily mean that all of the
> features present in GNOME for the fallback mode get dropped too (this
> would need to be discussed, and this is possibly up to each maintainer),
> nor that fallback modules suddenly stop to be maintained (although this
> might happen if nobody steps up). It's merely about stopping to endorse
> as offical the current fallback mode.
>
> It'd be useful to know to what extent people would be affected if we
> stop supporting the fallback mode. For instance, last June, Antoine
> mentioned that llvmpipe support is not there yet on OpenBSD...
>
> Again, before replying, go read the wiki page:
>    https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode
>
> Cheers,
>
> Vincent