unity-design team mailing list archive

[James Gifford <james@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

So in short, what you're saying in this entire thing is:

Guys, lets just follow http://semver.org/

Right? Or am I missing something important?


James Gifford

On 04/16/2012 04:34 PM, Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote:
> This is all about communication.
> 
> Now we have the Unity 5.10 release which, if I understand correctly,
> will be the last feature update of Unity before 12.04LTS is released.
> This release is so important, I'd like to see it as the end of the old
> Ubuntu and the beginning of the new one. I think that's important,
> because it enables us to really clean up the mess in information and
> communication out there, and that's what's causing the confusion and
> anger. It's too difficult to provide simple answers. After all, there's
> lots of things we wish we knew when we started, right? There's massive
> amounts of outdated information about Ubuntu on the web. If we can tell
> users to disregard information older than 12.04LTS, we make everything
> much easier to understand. That also means we'll have to really seek out
> old information and upgrade it, but that's a very precise goal, and
> something I really think we can do. Then users can contribute by
> notifying the Ubuntu community that some documentation is not upgraded
> to 12.04. Anyone can do that.
> 
> With regards to Unity, this is what I'd like to see. NotifyOSD,
> AppIndicators, Lenses, Scopes, Dash, Launcher, Sound Menu, etc, are all
> part of The Unity Specification. If there are changes to any of those
> APIs in 12.10, then we'll refer to it as Unity Specification 1.1. If
> there are any changes between now and 14.04LTS, then we'll refer to it
> as Unity Specification 2.0 – even if it's identical to 1.1. There are a
> few benefits from this approach: it'll make it easier to experiment with
> APIs between LTS-releases without creating confusion. It'll make it easy
> for documenters to know what has been updated. During the T-cycle
> (14.04), we can just search for documentation that has not been upgraded
> to 2.0. That means it needs to be reviewed. Might not be any changes,
> but we review it and update it to 2.0. "External websites" can update
> their code snippets and examples, etc.
> 
> This will also allow us to refer to other implementations. For instance,
> the Gnome Panel Indicator Complete applet can be referred to as a "valid
> partial implementation of Unity Spec 1.0". This will make it easier to
> spot what applets and plugins needs to be upgraded in order to work
> across valid Unity Implementations.
> 
> I really love the reference implementations of Unity. But what I love
> even more about it, is the modularity it provides. The idea that LXDE
> developers might create a Vala/GTK implementation of the Dash, using an
> LxPanel plugin to support Indicators, for instance. But for that to
> really work well, I think it's important to distinguish between the
> implementations and The Specification.
> 
> It should also make Unity more attractive as a development platform in
> general.
> 
> Can we please do this? It'll make it so much easier to communicate
> properly.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jo-Erlend Schinstad
>

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