There are always a lot of opinions. GNOME 3 is controversial but then things in Linux generally become that way because people are passionate and they care. Designing good desktops involves a lot of artistic expression and experimentation. It's hard work and really difficult to achieve. Then there's the gut-wrenching feeling of seeing your hard work tossed around and harshly criticized. Open-source is brutal that way. I appreciate the work you guys have been doing, you've been taking the risks and just wanted to reach out and say, thank you.
If you're going to have GNOME 3 be something it should that "thing" and make no compromises. That's why I don't like GNOME Classic. An interface like that has no business being in GNOME 3 at all. On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 1:57 PM, Jim Campbell <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 7:30 PM, Alex GS <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Tue, 2014-02-04 at 14:52 +0100, Bastien Nocera wrote: >> > On Tue, 2014-02-04 at 13:09 +0000, Allan Day wrote: >> > > Hi Alex, >> > > >> > > Thanks for reaching out with your ideas. I'm afraid that you're >> > > catching us at a bad time - we are really close to UI freeze and a lot >> > > of us are working flat out on that. I personally don't have much time >> > > to spare on mailing lists right now. :) >> > > >> > > Can you explain what the GNOME 2 sub-project would actually look like? >> > > It's hard to respond without knowing details about how it would >> > > actually work. I understand that you are proposing to utilise some >> > > GNOME 3 modules, but how would it differ? Would it have a 3.x >> > > gnome-control-center? Would it have a shell? If not, which pieces >> > > would you use instead? Would you expect the GNOME project to make >> > > regular GNOME 2 releases alongside GNOME ones? Would we work to ensure >> > > we produce quality GNOME 2 releases as well as GNOME 3 releases? How >> > > would we market these two experiences? What would we recommend to >> > > distributions? >> > >> > The main question for me would be, why would we want a "GNOME 2"-like >> > sub-project in GNOME when we dropped support for a very similar >> > interface, the fallback mode. >> > >> >> To respond that that I'll copy a response I posted to the Fedora >> Workstation mailing list, it's modified to address your question >> specifically. It provides a context for just how critically important >> GNOME 2 is to GNOME as a desktop product. >> >> Let's revisit the original GNOME 3 (GNOME Shell) design document: >> >> Problem Definition: >> >> "The GNOME Project released version 2.0 of the GNOME Desktop in June >> 2002. It was an important milestone. In the years since then, the >> developer community has continually and incrementally improved the >> experience while learning a great deal about what worked and what >> didn't. The entire personal computing ecosystem has been changing too - >> partly due to a number of new and disruptive technologies. While we >> won't dwell on the particulars of those changes it is important to note >> that there is a growing consensus in the GNOME developer community that >> we needed to make a leap forward in order to fix many of the flaws in >> our designs and to generally bring a lot more awesome into the user >> experience." >> >> https://people.gnome.org/~mccann/shell/design/GNOME_Shell-20091114.pdf >> >> The key phrases in the entire document: >> >> "The entire personal computing ecosystem has been changing too - partly >> due to a number of new and disruptive technologies." >> >> - and - >> >> "we needed to make a leap forward in order to fix many of the flaws in >> our designs." >> >> Mac OS X (10.xx) released in 2001. >> >> GNOME 2 released in 2002. >> >> Apple released the iPhone in 2007. >> >> Android released in 2008. >> >> GNOME Shell design document published in 2009. >> >> Apple released the iPad back in 2010. >> >> GNOME 3 was released in 2011. >> >> The "new and disruptive technologies" refers to mobile devices. GNOME >> Shell itself was created in the context of Apple's release of the iPhone >> and the introduction of mobile form-factors such as the Android mobile >> operating system. The "flaws in our designs" refers to the traditional >> desktop workstation designs found in GNOME 2 that they no longer felt >> could address the new touch oriented mobile form-factors that were just >> launched. >> >> It's obvious that GNOME 3 (GNOME Shell) wasn't just created for >> traditional workstations but was an early attempt at a convergence >> concept to meld mobile and desktop interfaces together. When you look at >> GNOME Shell (GNOME 3) today it's a near clone of Apple's iPad interface >> with clear references to the Apple iOS style language. This convergence >> concept is still highly experimental. See Ubuntu's Unity 7/8 and >> Microsoft's Windows 8. >> >> GNOME 3 is a highly innovative and very fascinating project but one that >> has yet to realize it's full potential. Due to it's potential and >> long-term outlook I actually intend on contributing to in terms of >> design, development and support. However, GNOME 3 is still hasn't >> matured to the point where it provides a coherent product and doesn't >> have a sense of what it's trying to define or where it wants to go. >> Looking at Android 4.4 on a Google Nexus 10 I realized it has a very >> long way to go, several years, if it wants to achieve a that kind of >> product ready state. It's still very much a BETA and not a RC. >> >> Mac OS X (10.xx) was released in 2001 and has been in a continually >> state of development and refinement for over 13 years. Apple >> demonstrated the value of continuous, incremental and methodical >> refinement of the same traditional Mac OS desktop metaphor. As a result >> developers, companies and users have come to rely on and they trust Mac >> OS X as a stable and mature desktop platform in which they can invest >> critical resources and time for the future. >> >> The sudden and abrupt abandonment of GNOME 2 was premature and damaged >> GNOME as a brand and project. It made GNOME a risky platform for >> developers & companies who felt that it was not a platform they could >> trust for the future. This also left users with a sense of loss that >> turned them against GNOME causing grief and fragmentation in the Linux >> desktop space. >> >> GNOME 2 remains GNOME's only fully realized core product one that has >> >> Things you can still do with GNOME 2: >> >> You can unify a divided and fragmented non-KDE Linux desktop community. >> >> You can spread freedom to hundreds of millions of users stuck with >> proprietary operating systems. >> >> You can attract a large user-base and make GNOME a popular workstation >> platform for high-performance users such as developers, designers, >> artists, scientists, engineers and the default at their companies and >> organizations. >> >> You can have had core workstation products on RHEL and Fedora such as a >> native Linux/GNOME optimized version of Adobe Creative Suite and/or the >> various CAD programs only found on Windows and Mac. >> >> You can market GNOME 2 as a stable Unix-like platform that hardware >> manufacturers and OEM's can take seriously and make bold bets on as a >> way of competing against Apple's Mac platform. >> >> You can make GNOME a viable alternative to Windows XP and Windows 7 in >> the corporate and education markets. >> >> Sadly without GNOME 2 you don't have a core product that's able to do >> any of these things. >> >> > I can replace, "GNOME 2" in many of your statements with, "GNOME Classic > Session" and see things in a similar manner as what you've described. When > MATE was formed, fallback mode wasn't receiving very much attention, and > wasn't a realistic replacement for users who wanted an experience like they > had with GNOME 2. If you wanted an experience like GNOME 2, fallback mode > didn't provide it, so it made sense to fork GNOME 2 into a new project. > > The Classic Session in GNOME now provides an experience that is a lot > closer to what you'd get from GNOME 2, though. Is it up to the same > standards? No, I don't think so - not right now. It is good, but doesn't > offer quite the same experience as some users would expect if moving from > GNOME 2. I understand that. > > But if the MATE developers directed their attention to making the GNOME > Classic Session all that they want it to be rather than supporting an > aging, legacy codebase, I think both parties would be better off. > > I don't think it's likely in the short-term, but I think it provides a way > forward for the long run. > > Regards, > > Jim >
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