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Standard X Toolkit (was: Re: Pushing V?)



I could have also called this posting either "Streamlining Debian" or
"Providing a common look-and-feel for Debian" That's what i am
concerned with, i am not trying to push one certain distribution,
because as long as the interface is consistent, i really don't care
what is used.

I think that the current discussion it is not going to lead us
anywhere, because:

1.) Already there are too many toolkits available for Debian without a
    hint for developers which one to use.  This will damage Debian in
    the long run (bloating of the distribution even if you just
    include the run-time parts)

2.) There are more to come: the next release of the gimp will use a new
    toolkit called gtk.

My suggestion is to designate a X toolkit as the standard x toolkit
and build all applications using this toolkit.  Any application not
buildable with this toolkit is per definitionem 'contributed
software'.  That leaves us with the choice which toolkit to use. Let
us have a look at what is currently available for Debian:

  * Athena widget set:		Xaw, Xaw3d
  * Motif widget set:		lesstif, Tk
  * Openlook widget set:	xview
  * Windows 95(tm) widget set:	Xaw95
  * Other widget sets:		Qt, V

So what are the candidates to be taken into consideration?  I think if
we look unbiased at it, Qt and V drop out, because they are not mature
enough, not supported by most applications or restricted in their
distribution.  Tk has a strong point in being supported by Tcl and
Perl. In addition it has the Motif look-and-feel (at least optional)
making it possible to treat lesstif and Tk as one set. The others are
well known and well supported, but Xview/Openlook is not to everyones
taste and the configuration of olwm is difficult at least (compared to
mwm/fvwm) and Windows-95 is neat but surely controversial .

That leaves us with Xaw and Motif to choose from.  Taking the seamless
integration of Tcl/Perl-scripts into account and reminding ourself
that Motif is the basis of the Common Desktop Environment (at least
for me) the way to go is obvious: Motif = Lesstif/Tk.

Thus a Debian X11 policy might be written down as follows:


   The chosen user interface for X11 applications to be part of the
   core distribution of Debian GNU/Linux is Motif, using the free
   lesstif clone.  In addition the Tk toolkit can be used for scripts
   as long as strict Motif compliance is enabled.

   Alternative X toolkits are available as contributed software but
   any applications built using these toolkits will be defined as
   being contributed software as well, baring them from ever being
   included into the core distribution.

   This ruling is motivated by the industries convergence towards a
   common X11 environment called 'Common Desktop Environment' or 'CDE'
   for short, which is based on X11/Motif.

   Any application designated to be part of the Debian GNU/Linux core
   distribution must only use the features implemented in the included
   lesstif toolkit, which right now limits them to the Motif 1.x
   capabilities.

   The default window manager of Debian GNU/Linux is mwm as included
   in the lesstif package.


What is your opinion?

Yours,
  Dominik Kubla
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The text above represents my personal opinion and does not represent the
official position of my employer on the issue(s) discussed.
Any official statement made on behalf of my employer by me is marked as such.


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