Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it) [LWN.net]

Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it)

Posted Feb 18, 2012 3:42 UTC (Sat) by ovitters (guest, #27950)
In reply to: Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it) by richo123
Parent article: Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it)

You don't provide any reliable data to be honest. If you check the press release for (I think) GNOME 3.2, you'll see that just in some region of Spain, we have 600.000 users.

Furthermore, we did engage the community. However, people don't notice and certain complain anyway.. saying they weren't personally consulted. Whatever.

FWIW, I've stood behind the GNOME stand at FOSDEM, and the general feedback is really positive. FOSDEM is not a GNOME conference.

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Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it)

Posted Feb 18, 2012 17:28 UTC (Sat) by boog (subscriber, #30882) [Link] (3 responses)

"just in some region of Spain, we have 600.000 users"

The quote concerns an official distribution imposed throughout much of the administration of Andalucia. Those users have no choice.

Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it)

Posted Feb 20, 2012 8:44 UTC (Mon) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (2 responses)

Unless hey signed an NDA regarding their dislike of GNOME, your point makes no sense.

Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it)

Posted Feb 20, 2012 19:50 UTC (Mon) by boog (subscriber, #30882) [Link] (1 responses)

My comment was meant to address the implicit suggestion that 600000 users can't be wrong and they chose that desktop. Turns out that they had no say in the matter. Moreover Andalucian Regional Council administrative staff are very unlikely to have accounts on LWN or to hang out on whatever gnome IRC channel. Even the manager would have to be quite brave not to go with the default desktop environment. So, yes, it is great that linux and gnome are seeing such huge installs. But I think my comment did make some sense: this was no argument that many users are happy with the specific direction that gnome is taking.

Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it)

Posted Feb 20, 2012 21:38 UTC (Mon) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

Ah, but that is not what I wanted to suggest or imply.

What I meant with the 600000 users is that it is *very* difficult to get reliable data on what is good for existing GNOME users. I see for instance in these replies that some were concerned that their needs weren't asked. But if you have so many users just in some region of Spain, it is going to be really easy to miss out on a large chunk of them.

Again, I didn't want to suggest they made some concious decision for GNOME. IMO, a lot of people don't choose their Operating System conciously.

Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it)

Posted Feb 18, 2012 23:07 UTC (Sat) by richo123 (guest, #24309) [Link] (3 responses)

This forum and Lxer have been absolutely deluged with anti Unity and gnome 3 posts. Check the archives for yourself.

If you don't think there has been a backlash you are in some serious denial.

Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it)

Posted Feb 19, 2012 10:34 UTC (Sun) by Rehdon (guest, #45440) [Link] (1 responses)

Even Ubuntu-friendly sites like OMG Ubuntu and Webupdate have been deluged by critiques when Unity/GS came out, and the few polls that have been put online show quite a problem in acceptance for Unity and GS. Of course it's much easier to think that since people attending conferences show enthusiasm (doh) everything is going well, and it's just a few naysayers that are trying to ruin the celebration parties with their "irrational hatred".

Rehdon

Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it)

Posted Feb 20, 2012 8:37 UTC (Mon) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

I was talking about GNOME 3, not Unity. As said, I mentioned FOSDEM, a conference attended by 5000 people. People who care enough about the software to actually travel. A bit more involved than posting on LWN. As I also mentioned, that conference is not about GNOME, it is about free software in general.

You've also side-stepped my point that I talk to people about GNOME 3 and the feedback is really positive.

Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it)

Posted Feb 20, 2012 8:42 UTC (Mon) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

The only negativity is by a few people on a few selected sites. If you check gnome.org, you'll see that GNOME 3 got a product of the year award. Some other site, now suddenly the most popular desktop. Furthermore, when talking to people in person, they're also really positive.

I do agree that some sites are really negative. It seems that some sites just attracts such people. Topics also include move to /usr, systemd, pulseaudio, etc.

What my point is that outside of a few selected sites, feedback is hugely positive.