rawhide report: 20060110 changes [extras packages moved to core]

[Jeff Spaleta]

On 1/11/06, Nicolas Mailhot <nicolas.mailhot at laposte.net> wrote:
> And rhythmbox is not the only Fedora audio app. You have totem/helixplayer
> which allow someone to play music without importing it in the rhythmbox
> db.

I have consistently suggested the removal of Helixplayer on what I
consider to be strong grounds of duplicate functionality. We can start
another thread on this specific topic if you like.  Please if anyone
has a good technical reason why Helixplayer should continue to be in
Core that doesn't invoke an unshippable realmedia codec plugin, please
start a side thread.

Totem doesn't actually advertise itself as a music player in the
menus.. nor in its package description. It advertises itself as a
"movie" player. I seriously doubt totem is in the distribution on the
strength of its audio playback features.

> Just as there is significant overlap between totem and rhythmbox, gimp and
> inkscape. In other words, if you simplify the picture too much yes they do
> the same thing.

inkscape is in Extras and gimp is in Core
totem's self-described primary functionality is movie playing and not music.

> That's an overly restrictive view, esp when we are not talking about
> packages that weight hundreds of megs like openoffice. Or (in the gthumb
> case) packages that do not pull in a ton of deps.

No.. im talking about the view point of the primary functionality as
communicated through mechanisms that users are going to see. Things
like the menu entry:
Gthumb image viewer    (Core)
image viewer  (eog Core)
GQView image viewer (Extras)
F-spot photo manager (Core)

> It will be soonish.
> Most people haven't have the time to accumulate big mounds of photos yet,
> because digital cameras are new.
My wife has about 8 gigs of photos right now.. i consider that a big
mound...and she has chosen on her own to use a mechanism that looks a
hell of a lot more like "management" than "browsing." She got so sick
of "browsing" that she has resorted to booting into windows to use
picasa instead of using gthumb or any other image program available in
Fedora Core or Extras because it does a very good job of "managing"
and "organizing" photos regardless of location in the diskspace
matrix.  This isn't the only "not me" user I've watched the usage
pattern for. I've had discussions with macusers concerning what they
like about iPhoto. The searchable "library" was always something they
brought up in the discussion. I honestly have never spoken to
anyone... face to face...using any operating system... that had more
than 2 gigs of photos that liked browsing photos in a
directory/filesystem sense.   In my experience talking to "users who
are not me" that own and uses a digital camera enough to produce gigs
of personal photos has become frustrated with the browse for photos
concept and prefer an indexed library approach.

> Remember, the average user will only zero his flash when he's forced to,
> ie when it's nearly full.

I know very well, my wife does this.. and yet she doesn't prefer to
"browse".. she prefers to dump and then import into picasa's "library"
so she can then "manage" photos into overlapping collections.  I seen
exactly the usage pattern as an observer and "browsing" is not the
chosen technical solution here.. "management" has consistently been
the technical solution that the "average user" that I know have
reached for. Liberal arts college students to  parents with small
children.. to retirees with a new fangled digital camera on Alaskan
cruises... all have migrated to technical solutions that look a hell
of a lot like centralized "management" to index and search their photo
collection when they have been given the choice.

Now f-spot might really really suck at implementing a good centralized
management solution which I'm sure I'll find out is true or not after
I introduce my wife to f-spot. But I'm hardpressed to agree with you
that "browsing" is what the "average users" I know want to do with
their piles of photos.

-jef