Thanks suv,
I've CC'd devel with the below thoughts.
On Fri, 2013-07-05 at 20:02 +0200, su_v wrote: to get an idea whether others agree with shipping this extension with inkscape or not
I feel extension inclusion is a packaging and code administration question and I think about it like this:
a) Should Free Software extensions be linked to the inkscape project?
I emphatically say yes, because the more disassociated extensions are, the worse their code and the more duplication happens. We want to encourage extension writers to be members of our project family. Who knows, they might get comfortable and start doing C++ ;-)
b) Should all extensions be packaged into the same deb file?
Without a policy on which extensions and how a package of non-core extensions might work. It's worth considering because it allows c).
c) Should extensions be committed to trunk. This is code layout. Extensions don't need to be compiled but are packaged and might be better splitting out if we could benefit from smarter reviews from python programmers who might be intimidated by the inkscape codebase at the moment. Testing for inkscape can be done in situ, but testing extensions involves extra steps which could be handled with tools in such a specialised branch.
It would be possible for instance to have extensions live in an inkscape-extensions project or branch and for packages to be curated. Like 'ink-generator' but with a "Get More Extensions..." link at the bottom of the Extensions menu that either links to a website page with the packages for non-package-managed platforms, or loaded the right os package list for managed platforms.
The additional benefit would be the separation of versions. Extension packages could be fixed, released and integrated at a different speed to the glacial inkscape release process.
I'd be interested in hearing from other developers about their thoughts since I can understand that having thousands of highly specialised extensions in trunk might not be desirable but splitting them out might be heretical.
Best Regards, Martin Owens