I strongly support inclusion of MATE. Why not packaging GNOME 2 directly? GNOME 2 and GNOME 3 are not parallel installable. And MATE renamed binaries.
Why not GNOME Fallback? It is dropped in GNOME 3.8 It is indeed different from GNOME 2, though non-heavy users may not notice the difference. It is not well maintained and have several technical issues (so GNOME devs decided to drop it). Why not GNOME Shell with extensions? I'm aware of the fact that GNOME dev promised to provide a set extensions that resemble GNOME 2 experience. However: 1. 3D hardware issue still exists. 2. Change in applications are visible anyway, e.g., Nautilus 3.6+. 3. We haven't see the end result Why not contributing GNOME project? I guess many people tried. However: 1. GNOME devs' vision is strongly towards dummy proof tablet rather a sane, enterprise / scientific suitable desktop. Check their design mockups for inspiration: https://live.gnome.org/Design/Apps Nautilus 3.6, again, is a good real world example. https://live.gnome.org/Nautilus/Roadmap/3.6 Some features that some users use heavily looks annoying in the eye of GNOME devs; GNOME devs urge to remove these features. I'm pretty sure same thing happened / will happen in other GNOME applications. For example, Empathy 3.6 removed compact mode of contact list. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=687351 2. GNOME becomes more and more *proprietary* these days. proprietary -- one that possesses, owns, or holds exclusive right to something (Merriam-Webster) Once in IRC, I heard that you don't use GDM with GNOME 3.6, the screen won't lock. And I'm pretty sure GNOME would definitely depends on systemd at some point. Then what for Debian? Also for input sources white listing debate in recent days, you can see how much control GNOME devs want over their upstreams (IBus project) and downstream (distributions). The white lists even break Fedora's input experience but GNOME devs don't feel bad. http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-control-center/tree/panels/region/gnome-region-panel-input.c#n67 http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell/tree/js/ui/status/keyboard.js#n188 https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2012-November/msg00091.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2012-November/msg00123.html https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688914 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688916 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=880007 Third-party developers and theme designer are also unhappy with GNOME project probably. http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/gnome-et-al-rotting-in-threes/ Why about MATE's 'stupid duplication'? I guess those who know much about these issues and care MATE should try contributing MATE. In a distribution level, I don't think such technical ugliness, if any, is big concern. Many other package may also use ugly techniques in source code, but who cares? As FOSS world allows people with different ideas and visions to fork, I really hope that Debian can help MATE reaching a wider audience, -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
