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Ask Miguel de Icaza About Gnome
How many of you are using Gnome right now? Wow! A lot of hands went up. How many of you have had a chance to meet or chat with Miguel de Icaza, Gnome's chief instigator? Hmmmm ... not nearly as many. Miguel's a cool dude, way out there on the forefront of Linux GUI development, and well worth meeting. If you don't get to a lot of Linux conferences, here's your chance to get to know him a little better. Take a look at his activity log and you'll see that he's about as busy as a human can be. What should you ask Miguel? Up to you. Post your questions below. One question per post, please, and try to keep things brief instead of submitting extended essays. We'll forward 10-15 of the highest-moderated questions to Miguel by e-mail shortly after 12 noon Tuesday (US EST -- that's 17:00GMT); his answers will run within the next week.
why the fsck did you pick C as your language of choice for GNOME? There are a ton of other languages out there that are much more suitable for GUI development than C. Do you plan on overhauling the whole GNOME code base at any time in another laguage (im sure C++ would be picked, whether or not it deserves to be)?
"There is no spoon"-Neo, The Matrix
"SPOOOOOOOOON!"-The Tick, The Tick
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Can high-level window managers like Gnome bring a little typographical sanity to Un*x? I realize that the problems are on a much lower level, but could a Gnome-aware application eventually be able to use fonts of any type without having to worry about this font being TeX and that font being TrueType?
-- Dirt Road
Improvise - Adapt - Overcome (unofficial USMC motto)
I currently use the Gnome + Enlightenment system as distributed through Red Hat 6.1. I have to say that I really like them a lot - desktop user interface quality is getting much closer to the SGI workstation I know and love (and also use).
What are the likely consequences of the schism that has occured between Gnome and Enlightenment? I'm not sure if I even understand the whole thing, but it looked to me like the Enlightenment folks were/are trying to create a more aesthetically pure graphical environment. What do you think of their direction, and are there plans to reconcile the two camps? Or were they really UN-reconciled to begin with?
Finally, I'm relieved to see Gnome gaining ground on KDE - I was sick of that group's slavish adherence to the Windows look and feel. It's nice to see that a different path remains viable.
D
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A common complaint regarding the Gnome desktop is interface consistency. I've heard some people refer to it as being like a randomly mixed jumble of good ideas.
I'm a former OS/2 user, so, to an extent i know what it's like to use an interface where everything has a somewhat predictable "feel" - SOM objects act a particular way on the WorkplaceShell desktop, and you come to expect it.
It's because of that that I use plain old IceWM instead of Gnome. It's not the memory overhead, it's not the processing overhead, it's the feeling that it's a bunch of unrelated methods for displaying data all on the same screen.
Are there plans to come up with a set of design guidelines, like Apple had in the early MacOS days to define how the interface of a particular module should act?
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
I have recently been working on a project that uses Motif widgets to do process control displays. We have experienced many problems that seem to stem with compatibility between Motif and Gnome, particularly in the area of colormaps. We have also seen problems with network bandwidth being almost continual while running Gnome, which seems to make it unusable over slow X-term connections.
Though this isn't a proper forum for solving a specific problem, I would like to know the following: How big of a development priority does Gnome put on support for legacy applications and legacy APIs, such as Motif? Also, what about support for slower connections and machines? Is the development priority more forward looking (new machines, new applications), or regression based (old machines, old applications), or do you strive for a balance between the two?
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
In light of the fact that gnome seems to becomming the default method of setting up a modern GNU/Linux machine I ask this:
Is there a formal method of creating a scalable GUI interface that will work well on almost anything but still be gnome? Other WMs have done this to a considerable extent and perhaps a little better being more leightweight. My first impressions from running the latest debs avaible was that perhaps it's still a little primitive and perhaps a little more shall we say corpulent than I care for. Also most WMs seem to be reinventing the wheel and duplicating a great deal of functionality of others.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
GNOME has made a lot of advancements on the "traditional" interface front (I mean all of Xerox-derived WIMP land), both in the "easy (or efficient) to use" and "easy to learn" departments. I find case after case, subtle and not-so-subtle, where GNOME is markedly better with its main competition, Windows and Mac. My favorite example of this is Evolution -- can't wait to try it. Evolution may finally tear me away from textmode mail clients....mmmm, query-able databases :)
:) but i'm doing fundamentally the same things, and none of the various ways of configuring things (GNOME + sawmill = many ways of configuring things) have so far seemed particularly radical or any more efficient.
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My question is, where do you see GNOME as fitting in to more groundbreaking user interface research? Not that anyone expects the GNOME team to start pondering lexicons for 3D interfaces (or are you contemplating such things!?!). But there's lots of crazy stuff that still goes on in traditional, 2D interface design. A lot of recent research has been in terms of PDA interface design. Do you see GNOME, with its obvious advantages of modularity and scalability, as having a role to play in that arena?
And what about fundamental changes to the way we use our desktops? I for one haven't really changed at all since the days when I used fvwm1. Sure, things have gotten much prettier, and more applet-filled
How 'bout the rest of the folks? Anyone done anything truly funky with sawmill? A Turing-complete wm is a fun place to start
When was it exactly that you knew (or had the feeling) that GNOME was a project that was going somewhere? Free software projects start with no guarantee of popularity, and for every GNOME, there's 1000 totally unknown applications.
Was there a particular application or library or component of GNOME after which you knew GNOME was going to be successful or in general "something special"? What did the GNOME project do that prevented it from sinking into obscurity like so many other free software projects?
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Printing and printer support is a major issue with the linux desktop. How do you plan to address this in Gnome in the future? Or do you believe that it should be addressed in a lower level than at the desktop?
Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
Just how well do you and the KDE guys REALLY get along....don't you GNOME people ever just want to get together all the Nerf gear you can and stage an all out war?
Seriously though, how much communication really does go on between the two camps? I would imagine at least some must if you and the KDE camp are to maintain interoperatability.
Miguel,
:)
My question actually has to do with Evolution, the upcoming Outlook killer..
Will GNOME serve (Evolution) information to MAPI clients? Would be a nice way to get rid of those Exchange servers sitting in most companies server room...
Cybie! aka Ralph Bonnell
visual impairments
mobility impairments
hearing impairments
thanks
--- eric
The problem, of course, is that the printing (usually ) goes through ghostscript, while the screen fonts are handled by X11, which operates independently of ghostscript. However, given a screen ( ie X11 font ), there is no canonical way to get the corresponding outline file (pf[ab]|ttf) or the detailed metric information ( such as kerning ). This problem is quite deep in some sense, because the fact that the X client and X server run on different machines means they may not have the same typefaces available. In short, Linux's right hand does not know what it's left hand is doing when it comes to font management.
Applications such as Star Office and Applixware "solve" this problem by using a text configuration file that basically consists of a catalogue of mappings from screen fonts ( in particular, XFLDs ) and printing fonts ( including outline files, metric files and the printer font name ). While these solutions are all more or less satisfactory in their own right, there are too many of them -- we need one GUI font manager that all apps can share.
It is very unfortunate that there are several incompatible solutions to the problem, because it means that the Linux user needs to install their typefaces once for each WYSIWYG app they need. A standard would be a very good thing. Personally, I like the idea of a well documented XML configuration file that could be used by any app regardless of the GUI API used.
In conclusion, my question is this -- What are GNOMEs plans for attacking the WYSIWYG typography problem ? And will the solution be GTK/GNOME specific ?
Do you see object oriented deisgn and implementation playing any part in GNOME's future?
The architecture of GTK/GNOME is technically somewhat object oriented, however, without all of the benifits of an object oriented language (at least the parts written in C)
It would seem to me that as the scope and size of the GNOME project increases, it would be increasingly advantageous to use C++ or Java with much more CORBA support and more structured design (UML design models?) for reference by the developers. Standard components and frameworks would also fit well into this type of extension.
Do you see GNOME increasing in complexity and size to the point where these types of development techniques would be required?
It seems that among Gnome, KDE and the various other projects around there is a substantial amount of duplicated effort in developing applications that pretty much do the same thing. Many new programs have been developed just to add a new interface on to application logic which (for the most part) has been written before. I think it would be nice if the interface was abstracted from the application logic and then the user could opt to build it for whatever desktop environment they choose (granted, not an easy task). Do you see this as an issue and if so, are Gnome developers working on any solutions?
Now then, how do you think GNOME will evolve in terms of usability? GNOME has certainly conquered the stability mountain (anyone who argues otherwise probably isn't using release versions), which is almost certainly a side-effect of the Free Software development model. However, while Free Software is generally powerful and easy to use for experienced users, it's not generally the kind of thing a novice can operate easily.
I remember hearing about a "usability group" or something like that for GNOME, to concentrate on interface issues. This is a great idea, but I haven't heard much about this group since then. Are modern user-interface issues a concern for GNOME, or is it mainly trying to match the interface conventions of other popular GUIs (like NeXT, MacOS and Windows)?
Thanks for your time,
-zack
Hola, Miguel
As a fellow mexican I want to know...what do you think is the impact of OSS in our country? I know all about the project of putting a whole bunch of linux boxens in schools, so that's nice, but...what about developers? I don't really remember more than a couple of names of mexican developers besides yours, which, in a way, also means that we don't have as much advocacy/knowledge about OSS in Mexico as we should (the MS tax kills easier here than in the US, for obvious reasons).
I guess as part of that question...what do you think should be done to "push" more developers into OSS here in Mexico?
Gracias por un excelente trabajo para todos nosotros.
Vox.
Pain is the gift of the gods, and I'm the one they chose as their messanger...
It seems that the GNOME effort is throwing an awful lot of resources at a component-ized architecture (Bonobo) which aims to do for *nix what COM and ActiveX/OLE did for Windows. And yet it just doesn't seem necessary. I know it's possible for me to insert an Excel spreadsheet into a Word document, but I haven't used that feature in recent memory. None of the documents I exchange with co-workers do, either. Is Bonobo really very necessary? What does bonobo bring to the Linux desktop that users are crying out for, and how is its heavy consumption of development resources justified?
The arguments over Linux Desktop adoption are well know. IMHO, I agree with the strength in diversity reasoning
and WOULDN'T like to see GNOME/KDE/Other merge developement regardless of the benefits.
Dispite this, do you think WM developers would work towards a set of interface or API standards (to facilitate
interoperability) or would this place to great a restiction on innovation and the developement process?
Sig
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars
I know Eazel is going to be integrating Gecko into their desktop somehow, are there any plans for GNOME to do a similar thing?
Personally, I would like a few things to come out of such an implementation:
1. An awesome XML-based help system that is also tied into online resources about Linux in general.
2. GNOME apps that can use XUL for their GUI.
3. Integrated file manager/web browser (you probably seen this coming), but I think such a combo can be used in a much better way than Microsoft does theirs with Windows/IE.
a. Better search and file management functions.
b. Better customizability, including tools to let the user alter their file manager in many ways.
c. Better blending of local files and network/Internet files into one interface.
Also, I would like to see an XML-based customization panel that allows a person to search through a compilation of quality GUI customization files, including icons, fonts, and window managers (and their related)
Hmm, well, that is all I can think of right now. I know that Mozilla is not GPL, but I hope that will not get in the way of people using their great technologies.
EC
"...we are moving toward a Web-centric stage and our dear PC will be one of
EverCode
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
I love GNOME, but one thing that I really miss is good integration of sound. Let me be clear... I'm not just talking about blips and burps to coincide with user clicks on the standard window widgets... I want it to be easy for application developer to add in audio aspects to their applications UI presentation.
For example-- if I was developing a word processor, I'd want it to be straightforward for me the developer to add a pleasing click with each word that is highlighted.
I understand there are some technical problems to be solved here, but there are more than enough sharp people working on GNOME to make good sound UI happen-- if it is made a priority. I admit that I'm pretty ignorant as to how GNOME is approaching sound. Could you fill me in (and hopefully reassure me)?
-dbm
When I first started using Linux (about a year ago), what impressed me the most was that you weren't locked into a single, all-encompassing solution. Everything was (and is) so modular. Tools like grep, ls, cat, head, etc. and the use of pipes just seemed so refreshing to me, someone who had been using MS-DOS (including Win95) for as long as I can remember. Even in the GUI, there was the display server, the font server, the window manager...
I see desktop environments as being very contradictory to the traditional UNIX philosophy of "do one thing, but do it very well". We have the two leading desktop environments, Gnome and KDE, which are rapidly expanding to include everything under the sun. Is an office suite really part of a desktop environment? Is an email client? Terminal emulator? Web browser?
Personally, I think the answer is no. I want the freedom to choose my desktop shell, my email client, my web browser, and my office suite.
To get to the point, my question is this: do you believe that the notion of a "Complete Desktop Environment" contradicts the traditional UNIX philosophy? If so, why do you feel the need to change something that has obviously worked so well for so long?
If you would like to know, I would personally prefer that Gnome consist of the panel and shell ONLY, and then we could have something like Helix which could package the panel and shell with a nice browser (branded mozilla maybe), window manager (sawmill or e), etc. I definitely believe there is a need for an open-source office suite, but I think the development should go on outside of Gnome or KDE core.
I am curious about other people's opinions on this as well, email me with any thoughts...
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Do you think that GNOME and KDE should attempt to become more "windows-ish" to foster familiarity and thereby tempt more desktop users to the Linux platform or do you believe that both projects should continue innovation that sweeps along the current Linux user but may exclude or intimidate the new user?
Your ceaseless work is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order."
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order."
- Doctor Who