On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 05:50:38PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote: > I see Keith has committed a draft to git. As discussed, I disagree > with this approach. This amounts to nonconsensually abolishing > someone's work when it is still being maintained, and the global cost > is minimal.
My feelings on this draft are mixed. On the one hand, I happen to agree with the position that the categorisation system in .desktop files (and X-Show-In etc.) should be able to cover the bulk of the practical requirements of the trad menu system: * There's no reason that "has a .desktop file" should imply "shows up in modern desktop environments", and so I think that the question of coverage is to some extent a red herring; the systems have different coverage because they've always had different coverage, not because the .desktop format is inherently unable to meet the needs of trad menu consumers. * We might have to look into the presentation of menu item names, although Name / GenericName offers some support for the different names that people are likely to want, and if all else fails the .desktop file format does have extension mechanisms. I would be very happy to see additional .desktop files being added to packages with suitable categorisation such that they don't need to interfere with how the maintainers of modern DEs want to present their desktops, so that menu-xdg (or similar) can supplant the current menu system with negligible loss of functionality for users of trad menus. I think this would make a great project for people interested in unifying the two worlds a bit more, which doesn't even have to step on anyone's toes. Perhaps for instance it would be a good project for Debian's Google Summer of Code efforts. On the other hand, Keith's draft seems highly aspirational to me. While it seems to me to be broadly the right kind of long-term technical direction, there is an awful lot of work in there for people who want something like trad menus which is being glossed over. So, I prefer Ian's position in https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=741573#355 for the purposes of how the policy text should remain for the time being, and in terms of the philosophy of not ripping out work from under people's feet. I disagree with its argument that it follows directly from the two sets of competing requirements that we must have these two file formats. I prefer Keith's position as a long-term direction, but agree with Ian that it is lacking an awful lot of transitional thought, and feel that it has a lot of things-should-be-done without it being clear who will do them. > Thirdly, IMO the resolution needs to acknowledge (in the "whereas" > section) that consuming a trad Debian menu entry is simpler and easier > than consuming a .desktop file. I think this is really overstated. .desktop files are in a long-standing and popular basic file format for which plenty of parsing libraries in various languages exist, so you can get to the point of having a parsed data structure trivially. In contrast the menu entry format is a bespoke thing. While the .desktop file format has more bells and whistles, many of them can be ignored if you don't support whatever it is. I don't think it's worth emphasising ease of consumption either way. -- Colin Watson [cjwat...@debian.org] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
