Formal complaint concerning the use of the name "System Settings" by GNOME

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Sunday, July 24, 2011 16:05:22 Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
> you're saying that anyone using a KDE application should also install
> the KDE system settings shell because it is the only way to configure
> KDE *applications*? Qt, like GTK+ uses the same XSETTINGS protocol, to
> allow interoperability between toolkits on the same environment --
> that's what we use to bridge stuff like the icon theme, the
> application font name, and other settings shared across desktops.

replying only to k-c-d as i hav eno interest in getting involved in the cat 
fight, but i would like to add some information to this discussion:

* what Emmanuele writes above is not fully accurate. i have had to on more 
than one occassion run the GNOME control panels to get specific features 
working properly after installing GNOME applications. he describes a perfect  
or near-perfect world in which we do not yet exist.

* Martin Gräßlin is correct that systemsettings is a workspace application; 
any kcm's that are required by non-workspace apps must be usable via kcmshell4 
which is included in the runtime for this purpose. it is not perfect, in terms 
of giving users of KDE applications a perfect experience in, say a GNOME 
workspace, but then that's probably why we also recommend the KDE workspaces 
;). but NO KDE application outside of the kde-workspace module may reasonably 
expect that ANY workspace app is installed. period.

* if our users complain about the results, we can easily point them to the 
decison made by the GNOME community and let the fault lay on that decision. it 
is not our job to police everyone who writes free software, even if their 
decisions do not fit ours. we can point them to kcmshell4 and shrug our 
shoulders, noting that in the choice of GNOME3 as a shell, the user has made a 
decision with several collateral effects.

* technical solutions to the underlying problems of needing multiple control 
panel applications installed simultaneously, not being able to extend the 
workspace control panels in a workspace-neutral way and not sharing 
technologies we probably ought to anyways for the sake of our users (the 
"SecretService" thing being a god example: when will we finally see that in 
git? :) are ways to improve the situation over the long term and the things we 
ought to be spending time and energy on.

so regardless of what anyone may feel about the sociability / ethics of recent 
naming choices, the above are the useful points in terms of "being able to 
make things better for our users".

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-core-devel/attachments/20110725/944be454/attachment.sig>