Thu, 18 May 2006

2:48 PM - Status

I was able to get some snapshot isos built.  I'm throw a link in to them soon.  The sticking point with me right now is what to do about a window manager.  There are quite a few choices and many are GPL licensed.  I'd prefer to use BSD or MIT licensed code when possible.  I don't see much choice though.  Here's my short list: (not that short)

WindowMaker
Sawfish
XFCE
something custom...
OpenBSD's modified twm?

I also considered enlightenment 1.6 and 1.7.  I liked 1.7, but its not stable enough yet.  Afterstep is too weird in recent versions. 

The problem with window managers is that for some they are religion.  Of course ports will contain others anyway, but I want a solid default.  It refects the usability and spin put on my project.

I'm leaning toward WindowMaker.  I prefer it personally and I showed a few users WindowMaker vs Gnome and KDE desktops.  Most described WIndowMaker as simple.  I didn't have them use it though.  Usibility is very important to me.  I don't want KDE because two other BSD projects are exploring that and I'm not sure how receptive Gnome developers would be to including patches I might need.  If I go the gnome route, I might as well call it ubuntubsd or something.  I don't want that.

I'm just going to do WindowMaker in the first few releases and work on something custom long term.  That seems the best. 

Still don't know what toolkit to use though. :)

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