Development quote of the week [LWN.net]

As I wrote in the introduction to this post, GNOME has never had a design initiative that has been so heavily accompanied by research work. The research we've done has undoubtedly improved the design that we're pursuing for GNOME 40. It has also enabled us to proceed with a greater degree of confidence than we would have otherwise had. [...]

When you put together the lessons from each of the research exercises we've done, the result is a picture of different user segments having somewhat different interests and requirements. On the one hand, we have the large number of people who have never used GNOME or an open source desktop, to whom a familiar design is one that is generally preferable. On the other hand, there are users who don't want a carbon copy of the proprietary desktops, and there are (probably more technical) users who are particularly interested in a more minimal, pared back experience which doesn't distract them from their work.

The best way for the GNOME project to navigate this landscape is a tricky question, and it involves a difficult balancing act. However, with the changes that are coming in GNOME 40, we hope that we are starting out on that path, with an approach that both adopts some familiar conventions from other platforms, while developing and refining GNOME's unique strengths.

— Allan Day

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Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 18, 2021 12:44 UTC (Thu) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link] (15 responses)

It took "research" to determine that one size doesn't fit all? Wow!

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 18, 2021 16:37 UTC (Thu) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link] (13 responses)

I guess you are drawing this snarky summary from the quote above. I encourage you to read the entire blog post.

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 18, 2021 19:03 UTC (Thu) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link] (12 responses)

OK, I've read the whole thing and it didn't help. It should have been painfully obvious to all who developed GNOME 3 that taking away (nearly) all customization was a bad idea.

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 18, 2021 22:05 UTC (Thu) by pebolle (guest, #35204) [Link] (11 responses)

> It should have been painfully obvious to all who developed GNOME 3 that taking away (nearly) all customization was a bad idea.

Please elaborate.

And it would be helpful to compare the customizability (I apologize for that term) of Gnome 3 to that of Iphone OS $CURRENT and Android $CURRENT. Because Iphone OS $CURRENT and Android $CURRENT are by now dealing with - wild guess - 90% of interactions with an OS of basically the entire world.

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 18, 2021 23:05 UTC (Thu) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] (6 responses)

Yes, and neither iOS nor Android are OSs I would want to use on my work desktop.

Do you really think that those smartphone UIs are the reference that GNOME should aspire to?

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 18, 2021 23:20 UTC (Thu) by pebolle (guest, #35204) [Link] (5 responses)

> Do you really think that those smartphone UIs are the reference that GNOME should aspire to?

I was referring to their lack of customizability (I'm sorry, again, for using that word) and the fact that the vast majority of people appear quite happy with it. To put it another way: almost no-one cares whether they can tweak the UI of their OS if that UI is actually quite well thought out.

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 19, 2021 0:06 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] (4 responses)

You may be right that the vast majority of users is quite happy not to customize their UI. E.g., my mother, 85 years old, doesn't want to do it.

Nevertheless, searching for "android replace startup screen" on Google Search get's me 5,060,000 results (your count may vary). Thus, my 85-year old mother doesn't seem to be the shining light that we have to follow when we work with computers.

Sarcasm aside, the gripe with GNOME is usually not about its defaults -- it's about the decision of the designers to take away choses even for those in the know, or to make these choses very hard to achieve.

It's a similar thing as with default installation of Linux distributions: I don't care if they don't install an MTA, syslog, NTPD, or locate by default. But if it isn't available in the repository and if I cannot install it with one simple command, then I very much care about it. Don't make me jump through hoops because "nobody uses this any more" or "you are not supposed to use it, according to our usage model which is always correct". If it needs the confession that I'm not correct, than I'll do it -- but let me live my incorrect professional live and provide with me configuration possibilities that I need.

One can dumb down the Linux experience for newcomers and hope to attract new people to it this way. OK. (I have my doubts that this succeeds, but that is a personal opinion.) But don't take away the customability for us professional pracitioneers who need it.

Cheers, Joachim

PS: As you will have gathered from that rant: I don't use GNOME (any more).

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 19, 2021 1:01 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (3 responses)

> It's a similar thing as with default installation of Linux distributions: I don't care if they don't install an MTA, syslog, NTPD, or locate by default. But if it isn't available in the repository and if I cannot install it with one simple command, then I very much care about it.

But do you care about it enough to maintain that package for the distribution?

Because _someone_ has to care _and_ have sufficient time/attention to maintain/support that package in order for you to be able to install it with one simple command, and that

(and that time/attention is in increasingly short supply)

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 19, 2021 1:39 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] (2 responses)

> But do you care about it enough to maintain that package for the distribution?

Yes, in the area of my interest.

Since 1982, I am active in the TeX developer community, and help to provide open source software (that term didn't exist then) for the user community. If you have ever used LaTeX in a non-English setting, you have used work from me. In addition, concerning open-source infrastructure work, I am one of the founders of CTAN, having stepped down from active involvement (after almost 30 years of active work) only last year for private reasons. Please don't tell me what it means to work for an open source project -- I know that for sure.

That said, that a distribution doesn't find a maintainer of a package, is definitively a fact for a valid decision to throw out that package. That's the way of life. I maintain several private forks of previously available software that has been dropped from my current distribution (Debian) in my /usr/local. These are all minor packages where I won't go to the effort as providing them publically -- but none of them are in the significance of syslog or NTPD. (Remember, when I started to use Unix, there were no such things as distributions. Actually, Linux didn't exist. I am used to set up and maintain /usr/local with additional free / open source software that I maintain in source.)

But that's not my beef. To come back to my point: If a software exists and if a maintainer is willing to support it for a distribution, it should be available for installation and usage. Luckily, this is still the case. But proponents of the "one size fits all" camp, as exemplified by the GNOME folks, are doing work to change that. (Please note: I don't think that they do so actively; they are convinced that their solution is better. This is not their aim, but a side-effect.)

I hope that makes my position more understood. (understandably? I'm not a native English writer. ;-))

Cheers, Joachim

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 19, 2021 2:11 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

> But proponents of the "one size fits all" camp, as exemplified by the GNOME folks, are doing work to change that. (Please note: I don't think that they do so actively; they are convinced that their solution is better. This is not their aim, but a side-effect.)

The thing is, the "willing to maintain stuff in the area of their interest" applies to upstream software authors just as much as it applies to distribution packagers. Supporting/maintaining "choice" carries a not-inconsiderable burden in of itself, and speaking of GNOME specifically, the detractors are generally opposed to the entire UX paradigm that the GNOME folks are working towards; simultaneously supporting the "old" and "new" stuff is a considerable burden that they're simply not willing (or even able) to undertake.

Putting on my own "upstream free software maintainer" hat, I've actively removed multiple complex features because they no longer fit with how I saw the problem domain evolving, and keeping those features would have greatly increased the effort necessary to develop the improvements I saw as necessary. To date, nobody has complained, though I suspect that's more due to a miniscule userbase than my own prescience.

> I hope that makes my position more understood. (understandably? I'm not a native English writer. ;-))

"clear" is probably a better word to use in this context, but yes, your explanation was quite beneficial, and I believe we are in general agreement.

(BTW, I'm sure I've directly benefited from your TeX & CTAN work. Thank you!)

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 26, 2021 18:48 UTC (Fri) by efitton (guest, #93063) [Link]

I am sure the maintenance burden is why features get paired down in many projects. But not with GNOME. Like you said, there was tension about the UX paradigm and any design that did not fit the wants of the GNOME design team would not be included. Any design that didn't fit the desires of the GNOME design team would be removed, at times without notifying the actual author. There was a reason MATE and Cinnamon are forks and not in the umbrella project.

For example:
http://berndth.blogspot.de/2012/08/nautilus-extra-pane-re...
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2012-J...

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 22, 2021 1:57 UTC (Mon) by ras (subscriber, #33059) [Link] (3 responses)

> And it would be helpful to compare the customizability (I apologize for that term) of Gnome 3 to that of Iphone OS $CURRENT and Android $CURRENT.

Android allows you to replace the launcher, the keyboard, in fact most bits of it. I'd put customisability at the extreme end of the scale.

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 22, 2021 14:48 UTC (Mon) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link] (2 responses)

Is that the right level to make this comparison? After all, you can replace GNOME.

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 22, 2021 20:58 UTC (Mon) by ras (subscriber, #33059) [Link] (1 responses)

> Is that the right level to make this comparison? After all, you can replace GNOME.

I'm not sure who you are addressing this to but it should be the OP, not me. He was the one that drew the comparison between Gnome and Android. I got the impression his reply to "Gnome is not very customisable" is "well Android isn't either". That would seem to be wrong to me, as Android allows a user to replace it's main UI element, the launcher.

In fact if Gnome let you replace it's main UI element which happens to also be it's launcher (the titlebar and it's Activities thingy) with something more taskbar like I'd be happy with it too. The rest of Gnome does look to be pretty customisable (ie, user replaceable) to me.

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 22, 2021 22:03 UTC (Mon) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]

I'm not sure what you are looking for but there are various extensions that will customize the top panel. The Activities menu can be disabled with tweak tool (I have all those left-side menus turned off) and you can add stuff to the panel; one of my favorite extensions is "panel favourites" from frippery. I also add a system monitor to my top panel. You can also put in a separate bottom panel with a list of windows if that's what you mean.

However, I'm not sure if you can convert the top panel to have a window list. The center clock / updates app doesn't seem so moveable (but I've not really looked into it). This doesn't bother me because I've never really found window lists useful, even back when every desktop had them: I use ALT-Tab or even the HUD and that works for me (I know others have different tastes).

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 22, 2021 2:13 UTC (Mon) by ras (subscriber, #33059) [Link]

I'm not Gnome3 fan, but I've been forced to move to it under Debian Bullseye because my daily drivers HDMI port only works under Wayland. [0] I didn't like it out of the box, but with one exception I've managed to gnome-tweak and extension my way out of my most visceral dislikes. I'd say claims they've removed all configurability are overstated now.

Sadly Gnome3's titlebar and I are incompatible. If there is a way to replace it with a more conventional taskbar setup, I can't find it. I'll be moving away from it as soon as there is somewhere to move to.

[0] Wayland desktops seem to be thin on the ground right now, which Gnome3 and KDE being the two possible choices. I'd be using KDE if I could get it to run Bullseye, but I'm lacking a clue. So is everyone I've asked, like irc #debian.

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 18, 2021 21:54 UTC (Thu) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

Those bar charts would make good material for a study about survivorship bias in UI design.

Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 18, 2021 22:34 UTC (Thu) by randomguy3 (subscriber, #71063) [Link]

I think user research is generally under-valued in open source (and in software more generally, for that matter), and I think GNOME has shown great leadership on this front. Even though I'm unlikely to ever switch from Plasma, I admire their vision and dedication to making an ergonomic desktop, and their willingness not to sacrifice that vision in the face of a few vocal dissenters.

(I don't want to make too much of a dig at those dissenters - it's perfectly reasonable to have a different view on the appropriate balance of the costs and benefits of customisability - but it does take a certain amount of strength to stay your course in the face of that opposition)