[Pkg-ime-devel] Bug#690605: Bug#690605: Bug#690605: Bug#690605: ibus-xkbc: not installed on with desktop metapackage

[Osamu Aoki]

Hi,

On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 01:33:18PM -0500, Ma Xiaojun wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 12:51 PM, Aron Xu <happyaron.xu at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I see your point, and I agree it's not intuitive. But unfortunately we
> > can't add ibus to Recommends for all desktop tasks, and even if any
> > GNOME package do that then it is a bug.
> > It's a long story to tell the whole thing, but in short it is not an
> > ideal solution because some (significant amount of) users have other
> > preference on input method framework other than ibus. It could be
> > added to ibus package so that users of ibus get this feature by
> > default.
> It's up to you.
> Why we integrate Vi when user base of Emacs, Nano is also huge?
> Provide a default and let the tweakers do whatever they want.
> 
> > There were some discussions about how the input method integration
> > should be implemented in GNOME, but the outcome was that GNOME
> > designers and developers disagreed to accept the advices from input
> > method developers and took an approach that has led us to an
> > embarrassing situation.
> Better to summarize as the developer and fans of one IMF try to
> prevent GNOME from integrating another IMF.

I am a bit neutral to this.  I do not think we need to be
confrontational to upstream (GNOME3 mainly by Fedora=RH).  Fedora is
their test ground with little regards to the stability.  They have
reason to do so.  If we want such thing as stability, we need to be
careful what part to follow and how fast we follow.  RH provides
stability with their commercial distribution still with GNOME2.  I think
RH is still providing customer with security updates with source on
them.  RH and Debian have different positions on how software get
integrated.  RH needs one good working solution for upcoming their
commercial distribution by testing them on FEDORA.  Debian is community
thus needs to make as much reasonable software to live together.  This
is our task and we should not complain too much to upstream RH on their
single combination strategy.

Since Debian decided to go to GNOME3 and we made all IMF work with
GNOME3 for wheezy via im-config or im-switch as much as possible.
It may be a bit awkward but ...

I think the issue Aron talks about is not for wheezy but the issue for
Jessie and for upcoming Ubuntu.

GNOME people are integrating IM into GNOME shell.  I do not know how to
handle this new situation yet.  What I know now is Gnome-shell is
reconfuarable by external javascript code.  Even if GNOME people tightly
integrate ibus into gnome-shell, it does not theoretically prevent fcitx
to replace ibus as long as someone can write codes to replace
functionalities as a hot patch. Considering next Debian release comes
after several GNOME3 releases, situation will be easier to handle than
how it looks now.

> > If you'd like to choose which input method framework to use, try
> > im-config. After you have installed the package, run the command
> > "im-config" from a terminal and then follow the guide.
> > Ubuntu has language-selector, a tool said to be deprecated by GNOME's
> > new control center component, but the replace won't happen in the
> > upcoming 12.10 at least. The input method framework selection part of
> > language-selector is a frontend of im-switch, which has been
> > deprecated by im-config in Debian. If the tool won't get out of 13.04,
> > I'll try to push patch to migrate it from im-switch to im-config. We

The fixed im-config has moved to testing on Debian.  Since some of the
missing features complained by Ubuntu people is fixed in im-config,
Ubuntu can move to im-config as backend to language selector.

Considering Ubuntu updating every 6 month, they have to deal upcoming
IMF integrated GNOME3 first as "released packages".  That is the biggest
challenge. (not minor tweaking between im-config and im-switch.)

> > won't have that tool because it manages language packs and fonts as
> > well, which are pointless for Debian.
> That's the solution favored by some people.
> They know im-config on Debian, im-switch on Ubuntu, im-chooser on
> Fedora, System/Environment/Language/INPUT_METHOD on openSUSE...
> They also know input method related environmental variables (apply to
> all distribution).

The challenge is GNOME3 may not be as compatible as other desktop
environment ....  and it requires a lot of GObject and introspection
internal things.  GNOME3 documentation for developer is not well
organized yet.  It is not so easy to learn ...  No API documentation for
Vala or Python bindings in packaged form.  Just C one is available as
package.
  http://people.debian.org/~osamu/fun2prog.html#_vala_3
  http://people.debian.org/~osamu/fun2prog.html#_pygobject

With the speed I am learning, I am not sure if I can propose good path
forward ...

> Happy tweaking!
> 
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