Forget to include a citation for the MATE desktop roadmap: http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/roadmap
On Mon, 2014-02-03 at 22:22 -0500, Alexander GS wrote: > CC'd over from the Fedora Desktop developers mailing list: > > On Mon, 2014-02-03 at 19:04 -0600, Michael Catanzaro wrote: > > This is a very contentious topic, and you're promoting a minority view > > (I suspect GNOME and KDE are much more popular in Fedora than the > > other desktops), so lots of disagreement is to be expected. > > > On Mon, 2014-02-03 at 12:22 -0500, Alex GS wrote: > > > Gnome Shell is a feature/product/package focused on mobile interaction > > > for hybrids and touch enabled devices including tablets. > > > > GNOME (capitals please, same for MATE) is focused on desktop and laptop > > computers, including laptops with touchscreens. GNOME has to support > > touchscreens well because Windows has gone that route, and 90% of > > laptops ship with Windows. > > > > Tablets are a secondary concern because very, very few people are > > running GNOME on tablets. They're basically touchscreen laptops without > > keyboards, though, so I don't think they're much of a stretch. > > > > Typically I associate the word mobile with phones, and nobody runs GNOME > > on phones. A new startup, Endless Mobile, is trying to. I wish them > > well, but I've yet to see reason to believe that will work well. (Which > > is fine, since they're new.) > > > > Anyway, it sounds like you're spot-on part of the target audience for > > GNOME Classic. I'm sure the developers would be interested in feedback > > on why that environment doesn't currently meet your needs, and how it > > might be improved to do so. > > If you look at MATE's road-map you'll quickly see most objections > against it aren't valid. They're actively moving closer to core GNOME > infrastructure such as GTK3, systemd and Wayland as well as defaulting > to current GNOME packages in increasing numbers. Several GNOME packages > from git.gnome.org have also been adopted by MATE's developers such as > gnome-main-menu. > > If you look at www.ohloh.com below MATE is a "very active" project with > over 2 million lines of code, 64 contributors and the last commit was > made 4 days ago. GNOME 2 is alive and thriving and evolving with a > large user-base among the top distributions Arch Linux, Linux Mint, > Debian, Ubuntu 14.04, OpenSUSE and many others including Fedora. Compare > this to GNOME Shell which has only around 81K lines of code, twice as > many contributors at 157 and the last commit was 2 days ago. > > http://www.ohloh.net/p?ref=homepage&q=mate+desktop > http://www.ohloh.net/p?query=gnome+shell&sort=relevance > > This presents a very complex situation for GNOME. What does does GNOME > do if they have two active thriving desktop products on the market > coexisting in parallel? Clearly GNOME Classic hasn't addressed the > traditional desktop use-case and isn't seen as a GNOME 2 replacement. > > GNOME 2 was released back in 2002 - 12 years ago > GNOME 3 was released back in 2011 - 3 years ago > > http://tech.slashdot.org/story/02/06/26/1813231/gnome-20-released > https://mail.gnome.org/archives/devel-announce-list/2011-April/msg00004.html > > Then look at Apple with Mac OS X: > > Mac OS X was released back in 2001 - 13 years ago > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_os_x > > Mac OS X is a contemporary of GNOME 2 and is still in active development > and supported indefinitely by regularly released minor versions 10.xx as > long as Apple is solvent as a company. > > If GNOME was like Apple they would have launched GNOME 3 along-side > GNOME 2 and simply updated and supported GNOME 2 in minor versions. > Today we would be on GNOME 2.9 or 2.10. The point is that when you have > an installed user-base that's as large as GNOME 2 the default of most > prominent commercial Linux distributions and even Unix platforms you > don't just drop support and development like that. You have to keep that > massive user-base happy while you continue to develop GNOME 3 and then > eventually when it's ready you slowly transition your GNOME 2 users to > it. > > When you abandon active and popular products like that you cause > developers to fork your product and keep it in active development. Just > like the MATE team is doing today. In reality MATE is providing the > free support and development that GNOME should really be doing. > > That's why I propose the following: > > Proposal: GNOME Foundation adopts GNOME 2 (MATE) as an official GNOME > desktop alongside GNOME 3 (GNOME Shell). > > "Work towards standardizing and unifying the Linux desktop space" > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Workstation/Workstation_PRD > > You have to think of your brand GNOME as a collection of desktops in > what is really a meta-desktop. Effectively GNOME 2 (MATE) is still an > active GNOME product despite not being an official GNOME project it > technically is one. The current thinking at GNOME is that GNOME Shell > represents this flagship product and having alternative environments > somehow represents failure of the GNOME project as a whole. This is far > from the reality because success of one desktop environment GNOME 2 > means success for GNOME 3 and GNOME as a whole, it means people still > love your products and want to support you. > > GNOME 2.xx (workstation desktop) and GNOME 3.xx (mobile-desktop) should > have a healthy symbiotic relationship. > > Take the recent strategic move of making CentOS an official part of the > Red Hat family. The reaction in the Linux community was overwhelmingly > positive. It was a sensible business move by Red Hat and will probably > swing the Linux server market in their favor as a result. CentOS > installations will become a powerful way to promote and expand the RHEL > business and standardize the Linux server space. > > Well, I think Fedora Workstation is an opportunity to do the same thing > for GNOME based Linux desktops. MATE much like CentOS represents a > community fork that's become incredibly popular. Much like CentOS it > also serves a very conservative end-user community. There would be an > equally and overwhelmingly positive Linux community reaction if MATE was > adopted by the GNOME Foundation and put on equal footing as GNOME 3 in > terms of development and support. A fully modern and up-to-date GNOME 2 > could be a powerful vehicle to promote GNOME 3 and Fedora Workstation. > > The user-base for what we know today as GNOME would be huge. There would > be a large scale migration back to GNOME 2 by former users. GNOME would > cease to be a single desktop product and become a meta-desktop. > Competing against GNOME in this form would be extremely difficult. > GNOME could address several different form-factors and user-experiences > simultaneously. > > This can be achieved by having both GNOME 2 (MATE) and GNOME 3 (GNOME > Shell) be parallel but related branches of the same GNOME desktop > product. > > 1. Have the GNOME Foundation adopt MATE as a GNOME 2 re-development > project. Provide development and support resources to accelerate MATE's > efforts to transition to GTK3, systemd and Wayland. Make sure that both > GNOME 2 and GNOME 3 are based on the same modern infrastructure. > > 2. Modify Mutter so that it can become the official compositor of MATE > and replace the practice of bundling GNOME 2 with Compiz which is now a > legacy Ubuntu product. This would ensure that GNOME 2 and GNOME 3 have > similar bounce, behavior and feel. Another option is to use Compton but > that could be seen as a short-term fix until Mutter was fully integrated > into GNOME 2. > > 3. Keep GNOME 3 as is in the present. The GNOME 2 sub-project will not > interfere with the GNOME 3 (GNOME Shell) project or dictate design to > them. GNOME 3 will exist as a sort of "skunk-works" style advanced > project focused on innovation, experimentation and creativity. Their > focus would continue to be on pushing desktop boundaries and exploring > alternative paradigms. If appropriate, innovations developed in the > GNOME Shell would be occasionally fed back into GNOME 2. This will > create a healthy GNOME innovation cycle. > > 4. Make GNOME 2 the default desktop for Fedora Workstation with Fedora > branding and themes as well as the current GNOME default applications. > Make sure GNOME default applications integrate seamlessly with GNOME 2. > Also make GNOME 3 and KDE installation extras to be fair. > > 5. Promote GNOME 3 to GNOME 2 users directly. When the user runs GNOME 2 > for the first time have a prompt that says "Would you like to see the > future? Try out GNOME 3". And it would be installed side-by-side with > GNOME 2 users could participate in GNOME 3 testing and surveys. > > I'm willing to bring this before the GNOME Foundation board or have > someone more senior to myself advocate on my behalf and am committed to > seeing it realized. I can also work as Marketing to engage developers > in discussions and elicit interest. This is an opportunity that's too > valuable for GNOME to let slip by. > > _______________________________________________ desktop-devel-list mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
