Development quote of the week

Posted Feb 18, 2021 23:05 UTC (Thu) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646)
In reply to: Development quote of the week by pebolle
Parent article: Development quote of the week

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...