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

I have 'converted' quite a number of people to Ubuntu, I even gave away CDs to my students, and guess what? when Unity came out all of them gave up on Ubuntu. All of them. Gnome Shell got a similar reaction, no way people could feel comfortable with the new UI Paradigm.

And what was Gnome/Unity devs' reaction to people complaining and explaining why they wouldn't use a desktop that they considered a major regression? Utter denial:

- if you were lucky, you were encouraged to "embrace change", to give it time, to give up to your "old" ways because change is good, and there are billions of people already loving GS/Unity; your friends stopping using Ubuntu or Linux altogether? just anecdotal evidence, don't worry about that (as if a UI study conducted on a total of 15 people might be considered something different than 'anecdotal evidence' ... at best);

- when they saw that many users just didn't buy the party line, the "irrational hatred" straw man popped up: some devs singled out the most offensive and inflammatory reactions as "hatred" and brushed off all criticism.

So we've got our own "reality distortion field" in the Linux world, and it ain't pretty. Me, I'm using Linux Mint and Cinnamon at the moment, and following GS/Unity development all the same, just in case they realize that they've really alienated a good part of their existing user base (not holding my breath there), but my Linux evangelizing is done for good, I've had enough of "WTF" reactions.

There you go, file this under "irrational hatred of a previous Gnome/Ubuntu user and fan" if you want.

Rehdon