Gnome Reality check [LWN.net]

Gnome Reality check

Posted Apr 19, 2007 20:24 UTC (Thu) by hingo (subscriber, #14792)
Parent article: The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative

Excuse me for ruining the party, but: "...which have pushed the edge within the desktop and beyond. Examples included the libxml2 library, Pango, Project Utopia (which had the goal of making hardware "just work"), Network Manager, and now the Power Manager work."

How were any of these examples pushing the edge of anything but implementing stuff that was available in Windows and Mac already? Ok, so maybe Pango, but still... I know that our free desktops have innovated lots of stuff - beginning with the ability to have several virtual desktops in all ancient X desktops to kio_slaves in KDE. But sometimes I'm amazed at how some (especially this seems to be Gnome) developers seem to be living in a cave and rejoicing of their landmark innovation of a circular device used for transportation (the wheel).

Other than that, going back to our main topic, looks like an interesting and timely effort. I'm sure GTK/Gnome will be a heavy contender in the mobile arena.

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Gnome Reality check

Posted Apr 19, 2007 20:38 UTC (Thu) by jdub (subscriber, #27) [Link]

In most cases, it was very much stated as "pushing forward the Linux desktop" rather than necessarily about competitive features.

Gnome Reality check

Posted Apr 20, 2007 7:13 UTC (Fri) by hingo (subscriber, #14792) [Link]

Ok, that would indeed make much more sense. Stated like that, Gnome (and KDE) deserves praise for bringing us to where we are with the Linux Desktop today!

Gnome Reality check - Question

Posted Apr 20, 2007 11:03 UTC (Fri) by TxtEdMacs (subscriber, #5983) [Link]

Your comment: " ... rejoicing of their landmark innovation of a circular device used for transportation (the wheel). "

Was the explanation given for dense Gnome developers or lwn.net readers in general? If it was the latter, we might change the site logo to include the saying about being read by more block heads than any other site ... but that might be ingenuous considering the readership and commenting corps from slashdot and digg. OK, forget it!

Gnome Reality check - Question

Posted Apr 20, 2007 15:40 UTC (Fri) by hingo (subscriber, #14792) [Link]

Heh, at work I always get into trouble when trying to be funny in my emails, I guess it has taken to me and I have become a bit insecure. Thanks for letting me know that there are still people in this world who would have understood this without any explanation, for some reason your post gave me an incredible amount of newfound peace and happiness :-)