Fwd: icon packaging

[Allen Winter]

On Tuesday 17 February 2009 8:44:36 am C. Boemann wrote:
> 
> ----------  Forwarded Message  ----------
> 
> Subject: icon packaging
> Date: Tuesday 17 February 2009
> From: "C. Boemann" <cbr at boemann.dk>
> To: kde-packager at kde.org, kde-release-team at kde.org, all at oxygen-icons.org
> 
> Hi
> 
> [cross posting a bit - please reply to all]
> 
> The packaging/repository of icons gives several problems for artists, 
> packagers and app developers.
> 
> Today the fd definition is shared between tango and oxygen icon sets and 
> other icon sets are joining. This is a cool thing as it allows the users to 
> choose which icon set they want.
> 
> This standarisation also means that many more icons are now shared 
> across applications. Different chat apps all use the same icons. Different 
> office apps would use the same icons. But this leads to duplication of icons 
> and conflicts when both apps are installed at the same time. The ideal thing 
> here is only one package that contains all icons.
> 
> Today with oxygen icons that repository is kdebase, but that is a problem for 
> third party apps that would have to wait for kdebase to be updated before 
> they can release in effect tying the apps release schedule to kdebase which 
> they don't want.
> 
> To remedy this the artists today place some icons in the apps. But apart 
> from creating conflicts it also makes it hard for icon artists to keep a close 
> eye on the icons - they disappear out of of sight for the artists.
> 
> Some of you packagers already extract the icons from kdebase into your own 
> package so the proposal I have is not that radical for you.
> 
> Simply stated I want the oxygen icons to be moved out of kdebase into it's 
> own repository. That repository is then released often (say every week)
> 
> Then apps that need icons would only have to wait a week from the icon is 
> created to it is available. No more tie in to kde releases. The release of 
> kdebase would naturally require a simultanious release of the icons too.
> 
> Furthermore this scheme (along with the fd standard) would allow you 
> packagers to create a virtual package "icons" that would depend on either 
> oxygenicons or tangoicons or any other fd conforming package.
> 
> We at oxygen would like to move our repository out of kdebase asap.
> 
> The versioning of oxygenicons would follow KDE's snapshot, beta and rc 
> numbering, starting with 4.x.60 shortly after a stable 4.x.0 release, and then 
> updating about once a week. Point releases in stable branches would need to 
> depend on the oxygenicons version at the time. So kde 4.2.2 would probably 
> rely on oxygenicons >=4.2.70 or something like that.
>  
> Opinions?
> 

Seems reasonable and would solve some problems.
No objections from me.

Are you planning to manage the weekly snapshots yourself?
Or do you expect Dirk to manage that?