[no subject]

<br>
That said, many of the Sun team do seem to spend more time than they ought =
to just to keep GNOME running on OpenSolaris on the various Sun platforms t=
hese days. =A0They often have to deal with various Linux-isms at a code or =
conceptual level, or with technologies that are coming late to Linux and ar=
e implemented completely differently from the equivalent used by Sun (e.g. =
RBAC v PolicyKit, Trusted OpenSolaris v SELinux), or with performance or sc=
alability issues that don&#39;t affect the average Linux desktop or enterpr=
ise user, but that would make GNOME unusable on the hundreds of thousands[1=
] of Sun Ray thin clients out there.<br>

<br>
All that tends to leave us less time to make the larger-scale contributions=
 that we used to make to GNOME and its related projects. =A0Historically, t=
hat included things like implementing multi-head support for gtk, designing=
 and implementing the original accessibility framework, writing and reviewi=
ng large chunks of user documentation, collaborating on regular HIG updates=
, performing UI reviews and usability studies, etc. =A0All these things wou=
ld probably have been gotten around to eventually, but at the very least, I=
 think it&#39;s fair to say these sorts of contributions from the non-Linux=
 side of the fence got GNOME to where it is today a good deal quicker than =
would otherwise have been the case.<br>

<br>
Now, there&#39;s no denying that until fairly recently, it was hard for mos=
t non-Sun contributors to even test their stuff on Solaris, so you could ar=
gue we&#39;re reaping what we sowed to some extent on that front. =A0Nowada=
ys, though, OpenSolaris comes on a LiveCD and runs in VirtualBox or in a du=
al-boot scenario pretty much as well as any Linux distro. =A0So it shouldn&=
#39;t be all that hard to at least check once in a while that whatever you&=
#39;re working on is at least going to build, preferably run, and ideally f=
unction in an OpenSolaris environment[2].<br>

<br>
Anyway, if anything, I guess I&#39;d argue that it&#39;s time to actually r=
einforce the notion that the GNOME desktop is intended for use on any Unix-=
like system, and to figure out how to better distribute the development and=
 QA workload to make that happen, so that non-Linux contributors have more =
chance to make significant contributions upstream again instead of spending=
 most of their time treading downstream water.<br>

<br>
Cheeri,<br>
Calum.<br>
<br>
[1] Okay, I don&#39;t actually have any idea how many Sun Ray clients are o=
ut there, but I&#39;m guessing the order of magnitude is roughly correct. =
=A0If anything, it&#39;s probably an underestimate.<br>
<br>
[2] =A0Or indeed any other non-Linux environments that you might wish to ex=
plore to expand your technological horizons in your copious free time :)<br=
><font color=3D"#888888">
<br>
-- <br>
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer =A0 =A0 =A0 Sun Microsystems Ireland<br>
mailto:<a href=3D"mailto:calum benson sun com" target=3D"_blank">calum.bens=
on sun com</a> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0OpenSolaris Desktop Team<br>
<a href=3D"http://blogs.sun.com/calum"; target=3D"_blank">http://blogs.sun.c=
om/calum</a> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 +353 1 819 9771<br>
<br>
Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems</fo=
nt><div><div></div><div class=3D"h5"><br>
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evel-list gnome org</a><br>
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t=3D"_blank">http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list</a><=
br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br>

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