2007 Aug 22 Desktop Meeting

Present

None posted.

Blizzard to add scope + goals to SIG in the wiki
Blizzard to clean up SIG and Desktop pages
David Zeuthen to clarify action items
Adam Jackson / Chris Aillon to finish bootchart package process + review
Colin Walters to work with David Zeuthen on clarifying the package set for the desktop spin and pushing into the livecd-creation repo

Adam was supposed to package up boot chart
In Progress - has packages and they are in review. Chris Aillon is reviewing.
David Zeuthen was supposed to work on the clock applet that changes time zones
In Progress
Blizzard was supposed to clean up the web pages and add scope + decision making to the SIG page
In Progress

Blizzard created the top level Desktop page in an attempt to make sure that things weren't buried
Confusing since we have shared information between the two
Need to consolidate and clarify that the Desktop page is the what and the SIG page is the who
Up to Blizzard to fix.

Note that this project is for the "Fedora Desktop spin" which is not the normal Fedora spin. More freedom to make changes and set reasonable desktop defaults. Different than Fedora for servers.
Main get-fedora page will have to emphasize this
Probably won't include package forks but is mostly setting reasonable defaults
Will have to work with package maintainers to make sure that those defaults are at least available
Examples:
PolicyKit and sudo style activation of system services (no root password)
NetworkManager by default
Lots of fear of divergence but needs to balance with ability to take risks and experiment
Probably a lot of changes that we need for Fedora as a whole at some point
Will work with the board if we need package divergence and work through any possible trademark or project issues

Walters: want to move away from small fiefdom model
Example: things that require a lot of changes all the way across the distribution like sudo style access require lots of small changes to a lot of packages so we can't just work in silos
Use a post with a patch for changes instead of just going through single bugs + owners
Want to avoid forking wherever possible
Try do do things in the post-install stage with defaults instead
Main points: encourage experimentation and move quickly?
David Zeuthen: Main point is to have defaults that are good for desktop that might not work well on servers
Walters: Main point is to make sure that the desktop folks are in control of the experience
Don't worry about package forking, if we have to worry about that we'll work with the board and others on that topic later

David Zeuthen still working on time zone applet
Adam Jackson has packaged boot camp, Chris Aillon is reviewing (lots of discussion of details)
Blizzard did some work but not on goals + scope

Desktop spin lives in the livecd-tools git repo right now
co-owned by David Zeuthen and Colin Walters
They will discuss what changes they want to make on the mailing list
"Low hanging fruit" thread was supposed to be the start of the changes but it got out of control pretty quickly
Jesse points out that there's only one week to feature freeze :)

How do we track the difference? Something in /etc/fedora-release or /etc/fedora-spin?
Hard to diverge due to crappy tool set
Can't tell where bug reports come from
Lots and lots of discussion (ask the user, detect in bugzilla, write to a file, etc)
Have to move this to next week if that's possible