Comments on: Lucid Community Team Plans

By: Lucid Community Team Review | jonobacon@home

Lucid Community Team Review | jonobacon@home — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 21:58:32 +0000

[...] the start of the Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx cycle I blogged about these plans for my team in Lucid. They included these [...]

By: Jef Spaleta

Jef Spaleta — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:41:11 +0000

You have it all wrong. The glass isn't half empty nor half full. Its completely full... half liquid and half air. I just don't take the air for granted. Fun fact its the air in the glasses that transmit the sound waves when playing music on a glass harmonica. And if you haven't heard Nine Inch Nails' Head Like a Hole played on a glass harmonica you haven't lived.

Sure get your ducks in a row... but give upstream the opportunity to weight in while the work is going on. Don't wait till your happy with the UI and then drop it on upstream expecting them to agree with your design decisions after its baked-in to the point where you team is unwilling of changing the design.

-jef

By: jono

jono — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:01:51 +0000

Jef, when I say demos I meant that they are first apps that show off this functionality, and yes, they are incomplete, mainly because the application-indicator code was completed last week and is still baking, and the apps have only just been ported over.

Of course we are not going ship incomplete functionality in an LTS. I hope my explanation above clears this up.

As for patches bitrotting in Launchpad, I think you may be jumping the gun - the Rhythmbox patch was written last week and the Tomboy patch was written today. I know you are a critic of our work, and generally look at our work from a glass-half-empty perspective first, but we are really early in the cycle and we are working hard to genuinely make a great contribution to this problem. It will though take some time for us to get all of our ducks in a row.

In terms of our upstream relationship, a significant chunk of Jorge Castro's (who is on my team) work is engaging with upstreams regarding this technology. I am overseeing this work and we are committed to having the best possible relationship with upstreams.

Thanks, Jef.

By: Jef Spaleta

Jef Spaleta — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:22:35 +0000

Okay the "demos" are done. The blueprint doesn't make the point these are meant to be demos. Is there a timepoint in the Lucid process by which a decision is going to be made as whether or not these "demos" are going to be part of an LTS release? It seems pretty unwise to commit to shipping "demos" as part of an LTS release before a sincere effort to discuss this with the relevant upstreams...even if its just a heads up that you are experimenting with a significant functionality patchset.

You'll pardon me if I'm not particularly big admirer of seeing significant functionality patches to applications bitrotting in launchpad instead of being submitted to the relevant upstream project for discussion.

-jef

By: jono

jono — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 04:31:02 +0000

Those discussions have not really started in earnest yet. Rhythmbox, Tomboy and system-config-printer (which is now going to be postponed) are demo apps that show off C, Mono and Python respectively.

The patches are available in the Lucid archive and also in the Karmic PPA at https://edge.launchpad.net/~indicator-applet-developers/+archive/indicator-core-ppa/+packages

We are still somewhat at the beginning of the discussion. We will be talking with each of these upstreams in detail throughout the cycle.

By: Jef Spaleta

Jef Spaleta — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 02:30:56 +0000

So about that indicator outreach blueprint....

rhythmbox is listed as DONE in the whiteboard. Same with system-printer-config

Can you point me to a publicly archived discussion with rhythmbox upstream concerning the indicator patch for rhythmbox? Or the system-printer-config upstream? I'm having trouble finding them.

-jef

By: nixternal

nixternal — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:29:15 +0000

Ahh, now this is refreshing. You know if you need any help, don’t hesitate to ask.