Announcing the release of Fedora 15 Alpha

Announcing the release of Fedora 15 Alpha

Posted Mar 10, 2011 9:05 UTC (Thu) by djao (guest, #4263)
In reply to: Announcing the release of Fedora 15 Alpha by sgros
Parent article: Announcing the release of Fedora 15 Alpha

It seems to me that many people are bashing GNOME3 simply because they used to work in one way and they either don't want to or can't change that. I believe that any project that makes any visible (radical?) change will get the same feedback. The problem is also that only those that are unsatisfied say so.

And what exactly is wrong with wanting to keep what I'm used to?

For the desktop paradigm, I think that something radical has to be done.

I agree as well, but I drastically disagree with what radical changes need to be made. "Removal of customization options" is not on my list of desirable changes.

There is absolutely no usability principle which says that alt+middleclick must do one thing, and alt+rightclick must do another thing. If I'm used to these buttons doing something different than the default configuration, then I will want to modify the configuration on my machine rather than changing my own habits. Indeed I find the suggestion that I should be forced to change my habits to accommodate software limitations to be somewhat condescending (it's 2011, why should there be software limitations?). I would never change my habits to accommodate the limitations in GNOME3, not in a million years -- I would rather switch to using another desktop environment which is more accommodating to my preferences (and it looks like this is what I'm going to have to do).

I can even understand it if the default configuration for these kinds of settings are hard to modify, since accidental modifications of desktop settings can confuse users. But to make them impossible to modify short of editing the source code is going way too far. This kind of restrictive denial of the capabilities of modern computers is the reverse of the kind of radical change that I am looking for.

So you can count me out as a GNOME3 user. As a longtime GNOME user, it saddens me somewhat to see GNOME evolving in this (imo) counterproductive direction. Many other users, like me, are also planning to "vote with their feet" when push comes to shove. Dismissing the userbase, as you seem to be doing, serves only to guarantee GNOME's demise into irrelevancy. After all, without users, there is no point in the software.

Maybe I am wrong, and maybe GNOME will (as you say) represent desirable radical change. But that will be up to the users to decide. I, as a user, vote no. It is with great reluctance that I choose not to use GNOME3, since GNOME has served me well until now. But the situation has deteriorated to the point where I cannot engage the GNOME developers in any meaningful way; any attempts to do so are met with the untenable suggestion that I change my own usage habits. Thus I have no choice but to take the drastic step of discontinuing usage of GNOME.

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