Xfce 4.1 alpha release?

[edscott wilson garcia]

Just do this does not become a argument between two people, I'll chuck
in a few comments ;-)

First of all, if we do not release a gtk-2.2 target soon, development
will crack. We will be left behind by gtk-2.4.

Some other comments,

El jue, 24-06-2004 a las 07:30, Benedikt Meurer escribió:
> Olivier wrote:
> > [snip]
> > 
> > I'm not very happy with the current status of Xfce, it takes 45 seconds
> > to start on my laptop and that's not really in line with the lightweight
> > desktop I've been trying to built. GNOME starts a lot faster although it
> > has a lot more features than Xfce. I hardly see why anyone would choose
> > the current Xfce over GNOME.

This is a serious problem. Maybe the bottleneck code should be disabled
by default. 

> > 
> > As for developpment; I do all that because I found it fun and
> > interesting. Some recent mails threads shows there are some
> > "misunderstanding" (to say the least) between some developpers and
> > myself. I see less and less fun in doing all this.
> > 
> > So? I just tried to put some energy in this project by proposing an
> > alpha release. A year between two versions releases is about to
> > discourage any user, not even talking about developpers.
> > 
> > Bahh; never mind. You want to wait more for a release, that's fine with
> > me. I don't care after all.

I understand your feelings. I am quite tired as well, and Benny's
unflexibility can be quite exhausting. I've given up on trying to
convince Benny of seeing things from a different point of view.

Just remember that you, Olivier, call the shots. 

> Hey no problem, you're still the boss. I've only tried to explain why this 
> issue bugs me.
> 
> You said you're not happy with the current status of Xfce, I'm neither. Thats 
> why I'm bugging you with this. I think it doesn't matter when we release 4.2. 
> I think its more important that we are happy with what we release.
> 
> You're right, we kinda lost the direction during the last months and we had 
> quite different opinions on where we want to go. Xfce starts up too slow, 
> which is most notably caused by the session manager (esp. the current splash 
> theme implementation) and the menu parsing code IMHO. But we should keep in 
> mind that Xfce is not GNOME, we don't get paid for our work on Xfce. We all 
> have jobs. We spent our freetime developing for Xfce, because its fun. We 
> cannot keep up with GNOME's release cycles.

Of course we can. As long as we stop whining about time. Nobody has
time. That's a fact. We must find the time. 

> 
> It'd be nice if you could explain were you want Xfce to go in the future.

To start with, Olivier has already explained the immediate future.
Olivier suggested a 4.1 alpha release (did I read right?). I thought we
did not have time, so why argue? 

Just remember, Benny, that the person who disabled xinerama as a default
was no other than Benny. So why the fuzz about all that multiscreen
blabla? Most xfce users will never use it, so it should be disabled by
default at compile time (just to keep Benny-2004 compatible with
Benny-2002). That being the case, your argument for the session manager
not being ready falls apart.

So, instead a doing a fix on xffm, I spent the time writing this. 

The only person against an alpha release of 4.1 has been Benny. Disable
whatever is not ready and enable what is. 

Let's get on with the release, ya! 

How about a date for the release? Olivier?