Dear Iain,

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 4:38 PM, Iain <[email protected]> wrote:

> > > >Bring up and fix issues with GNOME that are being ignored or shunned.
> > > Can you list these?
> > I will just be frank here...
> > Translation shifting from upstream to downstream ?
> > Development infrastructure limiting upstream contribution.
> > Canonical's Unity development, what does it mean for GNOME ?
> > Red Hat's control over GNOME Shell ?
> > Meego being a competition or a GNOME sister project ?
> > Smaller companies involvement into GNOME decisions
> > How much of GNOME is community driven and how much is company driven
> > Is the GNOME community forced to assimilate with decisions made by those
> companies?
>
> > > >  Work on letting GNOME shell be lead by the community.
> > > Can you expand on what you want changed?
> > Currently all GNOME Shell decisions are taken by Red Hat, thus limiting
> the community's technical as well as design contribution.
>
> It seems to me that your underlying belief is that there is too much
> (large) corporate influence in GNOME. Would you say that you might
> have some conflict of interest here given that your project
> (Zeitgeist) was ignored/shunned by the GNOME Shell developers?
>

I am not singling out any one party, my concern is just that there are
larger parties who don't necessarily seem to be aligned in their technical
approaches. Zeitgeist is doing well downstream and Canonical seem very happy
with it, yet this is not my concern. My concern is for GNOME.

I don't think it is reasonable to get into a Shell / Zeitgeist discussion
here. Although there were some obstacles on the road we did manage to find
common ground with McCann's new designs and Owen's technical review. But I
won't deny that the experience was *also* a "motivating factor" for me. I
will use GNOME Shell however as an example of a corporate driven project:
• The community never intensively evaluated the development and the design.
• The community had very little to say in the decisions of the
aforementioned processes.
Just allowing the community to contribute code does not make it a community
project. Which also makes marketing GNOME 3 harder for the marketing team.


>
> > > > I stand for innovation in GNOME.
> > > What is lacking now, and what do want to do when being part of the
> board?
> > Recently GNOME has not been attracting many new developers. It is because
> its current development state doesn't allow any new innovation to settle in.
> GNOME being run mostly by people representing
> > bigger companies no risks are being taken and thinking out of the box is
> usually categorized as such.
>
> Surely one could argue that GNOME Shell is quite innovative thinking
> outside of the box, and that quite a large risk is being taken with
> it, and most of the suggestions for it that come from the community
> are of requests for uninnovative things; "I want a task bar", "I want
> applets"
> Or is there a potential conflict of interest here as well that
> Zeitgeist has not gained much traction in the community?
>
>
Again I decide not to get into GS vs ZG discussions here since its just
brings up flame-wars, beside the fact that they are not comparable since one
is a UI and the other is a service. But there is an impressive community
uptake for Zeitgeist if its of interest for you.
Sure GNOME Shell might be innovative in a a Usability perspective but it is
the same old desktop. What I meant to say is innovative technologies such as
for example semantic desktop technologies that allow new dimensions of User
Experience are not being deployed.


> > [Redhat or Ubuntu] could start off with a design board combining
>  selected and competent representatives from community and companies, whose
> first objective is to rewrite the HIG.
>  ...
> > I suggest starting a technical board with equal amounts of
>  representatives of companies as and community whose members are
> significantly competent for the roles.
> ...
> > Recently GNOME has not been attracting many new developers.
>
> Yet you think the solution to attracting new developers is to wrap the
> processes up in red tape and technical boards or design boards? Surely
> Free Software is supposed to be about meritocracy, not about boards
> dictating how an individual project should be run.



Well currently there is a GNOME Shell meritocracy among the RH employees.
How is that meritocracy for the community.
Yes I think the solution is setting up boards. It is not a Meritocracy as
soon as sole responsibilities are given to a group of individuals affiliated
with the same corporation.


> iain
>

Cheers,
Seif
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