Bug#275949: gnome: The "wontfix" logic is alibistic and inconsistent

[Loïc Minier]

        Hi,

On Thu, Sep 28, 2006, Mgr. Peter Tuharsky wrote:
> > If we let people install Thunderbird instead of Evolution, they might
> > not notice the difference for mail, but they would notice the
> > difference in terms of integration in the desktop.
> Yes, understand. However, this particular problem is already calling for
> even more general solution. Some kind of integration so that user could
> switch applications or even desktop environments and let his contacts,
> mails, network settings etc. move with him.

 Oh right, convergence.  I'm not holding my breath.   :-)

 More on this below.

> > And I believe Epiphany (or Galeon) offer Flash support as well -- from
> > what I read, I didn't try it myself.  Keep in mind that Epiphany is
> > built atop of mozilla.org sources (in Debian, xulrunner, in Ubuntu
> > firefox, and it's possible to build it against seamonkey or the old
> > mozilla as well).  Actually, all binary plugins that work with Firefox
> > (such as the JVM, mozplugger, mozilla-bonobo, mozilla-mplayer,
> > mozilla-helix-player, mozilla-plugin-vlc, gnash, totem-mozilla etc.)
> > should work with Epiphany (or Galeon).
> That's nice. The question is, how much of it does work in real (I don't
> have any impression and probably will not have any soon) and how would
> it be resolved if something stopped working later.

 This was to debunk your argument that "Firefox has a plugin system".
 You question whether they work "in real".  Well, they work.  In real!

> > Here are some alternatives (some of which I already mentionned in this
> > report):
> > - install both Evolution and Thunderbird (or both of Firefox and
> >   Epiphany)
> Yes, that's exactly what many'd like to see happen automatically.

 Installing both by default would be useless bloating and would not
 match what upstream considers to be "the GNOME desktop".

> > We will address the problem (hence - wontfix), but only when Apt
> > enforces Recommends.  When it does, we should switch to using
> > Recommends, and you will be able to override any of the meta-gnome2
> > dependencies.
> Seems that many things depend on it.

 So, as you now made perfectly clear, it's not possible to remove
 Evolution given its level of integration in the GNOME Desktop, or it
 wouldn't be the GNOME Desktop anymore.  Evolution is not only the
 graphical UI that present the mails, it also provides a bunch of
 libraries.  So many libraries, that I think we can call it a framework.
 With this framework, you may write applications sharing the same data
 (contacts, events, messages, ...), or even the same UI.  This is
 actually quite close to the convergence you mention, except that
 Thunderbird was not written to use these libs.

 If you stayed with me so far, you should see why it makes no sense to
 remove Evolution, as this would be GNOME anymore.

 However, I think we can try to make the meta-packages not force the set
 of applications if there are no real technical dependency between
 packages otherwise.  This will only be possible when Recommends are
 enforced, but the solutions I proposed are temporary counter-measures
 you can use to address this.

   Bye,
-- 
Loïc Minier <lool at dooz.org>