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GNOME Shell to support a "classic" modeGNOME Shell to support a "classic" modePosted Nov 22, 2012 8:51 UTC (Thu) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855)In reply to: GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode by tjc Parent article: GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode
My impression (which could be wrong) is that the Gnome project does not want to accept patches from outside contributors I guess that's why we don't have a public bug tracking system, or integrated patch review on said bug tracking system, or even a public, distributed revision control system to store all our code.</sarcasm> seriously: we accept patches and contributions from everyone; there are constraints: if the maintainer does not think your patch should be integrated, then he won't integrate it. the reasons for that depend on the product's direction, long term maintainability, style issues, design issues, or implementation issues. any failure to match to the per-product criteria will be communicated and there can even be a back and forth until the patch is either dropped or pushed to the repository. I have just described the process of submitting a patch to any open source/free software project; it shouldn't be surprising anyone that things work this way for GNOME too.
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GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 22, 2012 8:57 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
but when the project leaders make such a point of saying that they don't want features, they don't want flexibility, they don't want...
are you really surprised that people don't "work with them" to submit patches?
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 22, 2012 9:25 UTC (Thu) by kigurai (guest, #85475) [Link]
I think what you meant to say was: "they don't want (the) features _that I want_"
While I noticed some regressions in the first versions of GNOME 3.x (most notably bookmarks in nautilus), I think it's a healthy sign of a project that features are not applied blindly.
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 22, 2012 9:27 UTC (Thu) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855) [Link] but when the project leaders make such a point of saying that they don't want features, they don't want flexibility, they don't want... this is something you have inferred by yourself, or extrapolated by single data points. yes, it has been said by the members of the design theme that extensions and themes are potentially dangerous; they have any right to say so, and from their perspective (and from others as well) they are absolutely right. on the other hand, you're replying to an article that says that the GNOME project has decided to use extensions to bring the 2.x user experience back for the users that feel so inclined. I think an announcement from the release team, which is direct emanation of the GNOME Foundation board of directors, should have more weight on any judgement of the direction of the GNOME project than individual emails extrapolated out of their context. another data point for you to consider: I accept patches, I accept features, and I accept bug reports - and so do all the other maintainers in the GNOME project, otherwise we would have closed Bugzilla down. if you think I (or any other maintainer) will commit any and all patches you send my way without a review, then you're obviously deluding yourself: I will reject patches that are sub-par, or conflict with my vision of the modules I maintain. it's not something unprecedented or weird or wrong. if you think you know better, then the licensing and development model allows you to fork my code and do whatever; I'd obviously prefer to discuss things before adopting the nuclear option, but that's just how things works in free software, don't they? try sending a patch for a kernel module written in C++, or using the GNU coding style, or using the wrong interface, to lkml, and see what happens. tho, I have to agree: we have a marketing/communication issue. every time GNOME does
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 22, 2012 9:59 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
> we (luckily) lack the personalities to just tell people to fuck off and die in a ditch, like some other project does
actually, I think you (as a project) are doing a pretty good job of getting that exact message out.
This article is one of the very few items that goes the other way.
Not accepting patches because they don't agree with your vision for the project is within your right (and your responsibilities for that matter), but you can't do that and then complain "why don't they just send patches" when they fork your project.
Preventing a fork is at least as much the responsibility of the people running the project (thorugh the process of accepting outside viewpoints and expanding the scope of the project when patches are supplied) as it is the responsibility of the people who start the new fork
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 22, 2012 15:12 UTC (Thu) by jbicha (subscriber, #75043) [Link]
》 Not accepting patches because they don't agree with your vision for the
》 project is within your right (and your responsibilities for that matter), 》 but you can't do that and then complain "why don't they just send patches" 》 when they fork your project.
If you're talking about the MATE and Cinnamon projects, I don't think that those developers even tried submitting patches. If they didn't, then I believe the GNOME developers are fully justified in saying "why don't they just send patches."
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 22, 2012 20:40 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
I follow loads of bugs, don't read all, but didn't notice. I mentioned various times that if someone wants to have git accounts to take the v 2.x development in a different direction, they're pretty free to do so (not sure about trademark stuff though).
Now this is not needed anymore (everyone has their own infra).
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 22, 2012 22:43 UTC (Thu) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855) [Link] If you're talking about the MATE and Cinnamon projects, I don't think that those developers even tried submitting patches. correct, as far as I know after talking with the maintainers of the involved projects.
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 24, 2012 2:15 UTC (Sat) by tytso (subscriber, #9993) [Link]
But you've already said that you reserve the right to reject patches that don't match your vision. And the GNOME developers have made it very clear what their vision is --- and it's hostile to people who are power users and/or who are used to the 2-dimensional, static workspaces, where we use large numbers of non-activity-specific application windows, such as terminals, text editors, and web browsers.
For that reason, I'm not going to be willing to waste time trying to bend GNOME 3 in "Classic mode" to my will (if that's even possible, given that you don't believe in giving customization options to users). It's clear it will always be a second class citizen, because it's not consistent with your "vision". Which is fine. Fortunately, the XFCE developers are willing to support my desired use case --- which is why I'd encourage all desktop developers who are interested in contributing to GNOME 3 "classic mode extensions", to consider instead contributing to XFCE. At least that way they will be contributing to a project where their contributions will be valued, instead of being at best tolerated since they don't match up with the GNOME project's "vision".
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 24, 2012 2:27 UTC (Sat) by jbicha (subscriber, #75043) [Link]
Actually GNOME 3 supports static workspaces these days too. There are extensions that add 2-dimensional workspace support.
I understand you're upset at GNOME 3 to date. Hopefully you can see that the GNOME developers actually do appreciate extensions that add customizability. (I mean that's kind of what this whole news topic is about.)
I'm glad that XFCE seems to be working out well for you. Maybe you should take a look at GNOME 3.8 or 3.10 to see how well the classic mode lives up to your expectations next year.
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 24, 2012 3:09 UTC (Sat) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
> here are extensions that add 2-dimensional workspace support.
Specifically, I'm using https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/484/workspace-grid/ which has satisfied my need for a 7x7 grid quite admirably.
HTH.
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 24, 2012 19:35 UTC (Sat) by tytso (subscriber, #9993) [Link]
Well, let's wait a few releases to see what other features (including perhaps static 2D workspaces, or other things which I depend upon) either disappear capriciously, or fail because extensions are considered 2nd class citizens that can break at any time when changes to GNOME's "core vision" are made.
The problem is that the GNOME developers have a very bad reputation about not caring about preserving their existing userbase's usage patterns, and instead of developed Steve Jobs arrogance of trying to tell me that "I'm using it wrong". I haven't seen any evidence they've repented of their arrogance. Until then, why should I risk my productivity?
Better to try to encourage more people to use the competition such as XFCE, and make it be a better desktop environment than GNOME 2.x ever was (and certainly better than GNOME 3.x is by my lights).
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 24, 2012 21:57 UTC (Sat) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
Out of curiosity, why encourage people to go with XFCE for their GNOME 2 needs, rather than MATE - which actually is GNOME 2?
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 24, 2012 22:13 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
XFCE probably has a better future, as MATE is clearly based on legacy codebase. MATE upgraded to use GTK3 is called "Cinnamon".
XFCE, on the other hand, is not married to GTK2 - there are plans to migrate to GTK3 (it's actually slowly happening right now). And XFCE community is nice enough to minimize breaking UI changes.
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 26, 2012 17:07 UTC (Mon) by tytso (subscriber, #9993) [Link]
From what I can tell the development community for MATE is quite small, certainly compared to XFCE's. I don't have as a good of a sense of the number of developers working on Cinnamon. Can anyone comment how the viability of the Gnome 2 forks in general as far as development community?
But in any case, that's why I've been recommending XFCE; that and the fact that it's available on all of the major distributions, which is not necessarily true for the Gnome 2 forks.
GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode Posted Nov 22, 2012 17:56 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]
> I have just described the process of submitting a patch to any open source/free software project; it shouldn't be surprising anyone that things work this way for GNOME too.
If you read from the top of this thread down to here you'll notice that we're going around in a big circle, with a lot of context being left behind along the way.
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