GNOME 46 puts Flatpaks front and center

Posted Mar 27, 2024 7:45 UTC (Wed) by malmedal (subscriber, #56172)
In reply to: GNOME 46 puts Flatpaks front and center by pizza
Parent article: GNOME 46 puts Flatpaks front and center

> ....That's a distinction without a difference;

No, it's an entirely different issue.

> It's almost like people are going to complain no matter what you do, so you might as well build the software you want.

If Gnome wants more market-share they need to do a more sophisticated analysis than "got complaint, yes/no?"

GNOME 46 puts Flatpaks front and center

Posted Mar 27, 2024 13:11 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (7 responses)

> If Gnome wants more market-share they need to do a more sophisticated analysis than "got complaint, yes/no?"

Oh, you mean Gnome should not take approach that works exceptionally well for Apple and Google?

Arguing that Oranges should become more like Cashews to appeal to people who like tree nuts is specious; they are radically different in what they intentionally appeal to (and their nutritional makeup) and both can coexist just fine in the greater ecosystem.

You don't like what Gnome is doing; that's fine, there are _plenty_ of alternatives. Including MS Windows -- which is simultaneously held up as the gold standard what everyone should emulate, and as the pinnacle of everything we shouldn't.

Blindly mimicing what everyone else is doing isn't how _any_ of the dominant platforms got that way. Including Windows.

GNOME 46 puts Flatpaks front and center

Posted Mar 27, 2024 14:27 UTC (Wed) by malmedal (subscriber, #56172) [Link] (6 responses)

> Oh, you mean Gnome should not take approach that works exceptionally well for Apple and Google?

No, that's exactly what Gnome should do, but they're not.

GNOME 46 puts Flatpaks front and center

Posted Mar 27, 2024 15:13 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (5 responses)

>> Oh, you mean Gnome should not take approach that works exceptionally well for Apple and Google?
>No, that's exactly what Gnome should do, but they're not.

... so you're telling us that Apple and Google don't arbitrarily change UI elements (and plenty of other things under the hood) with *every* *single* *release*, and don't tell folks to effectively pound sand if they don't like it?

GNOME 46 puts Flatpaks front and center

Posted Mar 27, 2024 15:42 UTC (Wed) by malmedal (subscriber, #56172) [Link] (4 responses)

No, I'm saying you need to do a more sophisticated analysis of what they are doing. And especially note the difference to how it was earlier when they weren't incumbent.

GNOME 46 puts Flatpaks front and center

Posted Mar 27, 2024 16:19 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (3 responses)

> No, I'm saying you need to do a more sophisticated analysis of what they are doing. And especially note the difference to how it was earlier when they weren't incumbent.

So... how about you apply that same sophisticated analysis to what Gnome has done?

(Especially noting the difference that having actual non-exclusionary F/OSS competition brings?)

Keep in mind here that the person I was initially responding to was lamenting the lack of originality (versus simple mimicry) in F/OSS offerings. The responses to GNOME doing just that (with v2 and especially v3), including your responses on this thread, demonstrate the absurdity of that statement.

*every* platform out there (commercial or F/OSS) holds strong opinions on its user interaction paradigm. Sometimes those opinions change, and drastically at that, from one major release to the next. For example, in the past 30 years, The Windows UI paradigm has seen at least three major overhauls (Win3->Win95->Win8) with more minor/evolutionary ones with each successive release. Gnome has done something similar (G1->G2->G3). XFCE has gone through at least two, as have Android and MacOS. Meanwhile, the first-party software from the commercial platform vendors themselves is usually by far the worst offender when it comes to violating the native platform UI guidelines -- take-it-all-or-leave-it UX-is-everything Apple is probably the worst (serial!) offender, and they're routinely lauded for this attitude.

So, I stand by what I wrote; Gnome has been heavily criticized for both mimicry and originality; they're going to get grief no matter what they do. If you want "mass appeal" just do a 1:1 clone of Windows (or maybe Android) , or better yet just use Genuine Windows (or Android) to begin with. Or Gnome can instead build the software/environment they want, and the folks who like it can use it, and everyone else can freely choose to use something else.

(And if you genuinely don't have a choice in the matter about using Gnome, it's because your employer mandates it along with any number of other things you give up in exchange for a paycheck. Welcome to Life.)

GNOME 46 puts Flatpaks front and center

Posted Mar 27, 2024 18:13 UTC (Wed) by malmedal (subscriber, #56172) [Link] (2 responses)

Don't worry on my behalf, I'm not being forced to use Gnome or anything I don't want. I'm fact, what I'm using is not something I'd recommend for non-technical users. However I'd be happy if non-technical users could reasonably be expected to use Linux. This is why I'm unhappy about Gnome's life-choices.(and also same for KDE)

> So, I stand by what I wrote; Gnome has been heavily criticized for both mimicry and originality;

Gnome is getting a wide spectrum of criticism, you'll be eternally confused as long as you shoehorn these into just two options.

GNOME 46 puts Flatpaks front and center

Posted Mar 29, 2024 13:04 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

> Gnome is getting a wide spectrum of criticism, you'll be eternally confused as long as you shoehorn these into just two options.

Of course it gets more than that, even from within its own developer camp. But you know what? So does *every other piece of software* that's used by more than a handful of people.

If you're design something to operate a certain way, of course you're going to ignore the feedback that demands you operate differently. Gnome is far from unique in this respect.

GNOME 46 puts Flatpaks front and center

Posted Mar 29, 2024 15:12 UTC (Fri) by malmedal (subscriber, #56172) [Link]

> If you're design something to operate a certain way, of course you're going to ignore the feedback that demands you operate differently.

Much of the feedback I'm seeing seems motivated to help Gnome achieve its stated goals. I'm sure the criticism will abate if Gnome clarifies what these are.