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0f7b58d
(Get the code!)
Oh man, I've just come across this bug as a result of testing 13.04 and, along with a number of other people, finding serious problems with this.
It is a terrible decision!
Why?
1. "If the whitelist was retired, Java and Wine would be hard-coded as the only software still able to use the menu bar as if it was a notification area, because their developers don't necessarily know that Ubuntu even exists."
But what about other developers who do not know or care about Ubuntu?
2. "If the whitelist was retired, Java and Wine would be hard-coded…"
Clearly Mark does not know about proper programming practice. Hard-coding parameters was deprecated in the early 1980's.
3. "If the whitelist was retired, Java and Wine would be hard-coded…"
That does not increase freedom — it does the exact opposite. For Mark to try to predict which applications users may need to white-list is short-sighted. As Niels Bohr said, "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future."
4. There are some well-respected and popular applications (such as TrueCrypt) that will no longer work when 13.04 comes around. Imagine the backlash. It's easy to say, "Oh, well, the application developers should change their code", but seriously, Canonical does not employ them. We depend on their goodwill and their time (not all developers are paid for their work).
Implementing this "feature" is unfortunate, and needs to be removed as a regression bug. Please, please, please keep the parameters as parameters and not hard-coded!