Forwarded from test list. ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: "John Dulaney" j_dulaney@live.com To: "Fedora QA" test@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Sunday, June 5, 2011 8:28:45 PM Subject: RE: Proposal: Too similar application names

That all said, question remains on what to actually do on this. In a long term I'd suggest trying advocate that there is a appropriate solution based in the upstream, might it be pop-ups (sounds reasonable to do for all the desktop environments) or something based on how KDE does it. Although having upstream to do something is, like I said - long term. Thus let's decide on what to do about this now.

I'd say that a number of cases this relates to is limited to a fairly small number. I am counting:

• Software Update/Software Updates
• System Monitor
• Terminal
• system-config-(e.g. date) vs. gnome control panel applets

(and likely a few more).

As a compromise between getting rid of the problem (user annoyance...) completely and the amount of work that would have to be done, I suggest that we simply target these applications and modify the desktop files so that they become distinguishable. That means in the menus and on the first sight, whatever *.desktop field is responsible for that in particular environments. Should we manage to push having a popup in Upstream, that would be great later on.

I agree, this is a good starting point. I don't really see the point of the popups, but if other folks think they're necessary, I won't argue.

Now, should we agree on this quickfix now, how to do that? Am I right that this would mean asking the maintainers of these cca 10 packages to change the *.desktop files in the packaging process? Do the *.desktop files come from upstream or are they made or at least modified already by Fedora? I suppose it would be better if they already get modified, as then the single extra edit would be less painful for maintainers. Still - sounds relatively painless.

In theory, the technical side should be a thirty second fix. The issue would be deciding new names. Some things shouldn't be too difficult, such as renaming Software Updates to Software Sources.

We can also consider making a simple (e.g. targeting just default live installs) release criterion that would "force" such, though I'd think having it done on "voluntary" basis is more appropriate.

I wonder if this should be a QA test? It would help with improving the end product for us to check things like this, but it is also fairly subjective as to what constitutes as 'too similar.' I'm for it, but the aforementioned subjective nature makes coming up with a clear release criteria difficult.

John.