#6598 HIGH Update.: Activities for base build

[Zarro Boogs per Child]

#6598: Activities for base build
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  Reporter:  kimquirk  |       Owner:  dgilmore
      Type:  defect    |      Status:  new     
  Priority:  high      |   Milestone:  Update.1
 Component:  distro    |     Version:          
Resolution:            |    Keywords:          
  Verified:  0         |    Blocking:          
 Blockedby:            |  
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Comment(by cscott):

 Replying to [comment:13 bemasc]:
 > Replying to [comment:12 cscott]:
 > > (b) Read can't be installed by other means
 >
 > Really? evince-olpc needs to be in the system, but I'm pretty sure Read
 is just a python activity like any other.

 It's a little special in that it doesn't show up in the activity toolbar;
 it is solely a helper application for Browse.  I don't know why that is,
 and I guess if I had to speculate I'd say that (a) it's probably treated
 specially because it's a "view only" application; it can't be used to
 create content, and (b) that's probably a bug: it would be nice if our PDF
 reader was (say) an annotation tool, or integrated into Write, or
 somesuch, so that it was actually a full-fledged activity.  But again, I'm
 only guessing.

 > The rest of your points I can't argue with. I still don't see the
 utility of marking Chat, Write, Record, or Paint as "core".  It seems that
 "core" activities should be only those that OLPC is actually unable to
 remove, for technical or legal reasons.
 >
 > Ideally, I'd like to get rid of /usr/share/activities/ altogether, thus
 simplifying that bit of Sugar considerably.

 Again, I wasn't around when that part of Sugar was implemented, but
 Journal and Control Panel (whenever it gets implemented) will likely
 always be special, because they get special exceptions to the security
 policy.  That means that updates to them have to be special-cased.
 Browse, Terminal, Log Viewer, and Analyze also fall in this category at
 the moment.  Browse is fixable.  Terminal, Log Viewer, and Analyze need
 activity signing to be safely installable.  Maybe Control Panel could be
 handled like that, too.  That leaves Journal.

 So, other than Journal, I completely agree with you, but it's unlikely to
 happen soon -- moving the rest of the activities out of
 /usr/share/activities was only forced by immediate needs of our Mexico,
 Peru, and Nepal.  If the community adopts the other applications and
 starts cranking out new and better versions, deployments might pressure us
 to move them out of the core build and into their customization keys, but
 the pressure isn't there at the moment, and there's an aesthetic benefit
 to be had by keeping at least the left hand side of the activity toolbar
 consistent across all XOs.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/6598#comment:14>
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