Announce: new GHNS project

[Josef Spillner]

Am Dienstag, 7. Juni 2005 22:31 schrieb Aaron J. Seigo:
> what will be moving out of the KNewStuff library, if anything, with the
> advent of this? is the new site and mailing list (which i've just sub'd to)
> simply the creation of specs or also of commonly shared software?
> (personally i'd prefer the former over the latter)

Primarily the specs. Some time ago I proposed a KDE CVS module for web 
applications, but since nobody else liked the idea of doing this in a desktop 
project, I'm fine with hacking the perl scripts on kstuff.org.
There's not so much that can actually be standardised. Already when going one 
more step towards the individual desktop, say the installation commands in 
the *rc files, it is questionable whether it makes sense to not let it be the 
app's or desktop's task to care about where to install.
So nothing is moving out of KNewStuff, except for the DTD files (btw. XSD to 
come). In return, some additional functionality will be added.

> note that GHNS will be a critical component Plasma as that is how we will
> be distributing many of the add-ons, even ones that are developed centrally
> within the Plasma project itself. so expect us to be active on the new GHNS
> list as well =)

Everybody speaks of plasma and I have to admit I don't know it yet. But for 
KDE app authors not much will change. It's just a more formal standardisation 
of what has already been done, and a chance to get more people interested not 
only from KDE but also from other projects (both desktop and non-desktop).
And seeing that GHNS gets broader usage makes me more confident that this step 
is essential. Look at how many apps do have a KNewStuff download dialog now, 
but only very vew have an upload dialog. This is not good. If the goal is to 
enable the users to be more creative, then this must be backed by both code 
and infrastructure, and there's still lots of work to do in both areas.

Josef