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> The UI/UX experts at Gnome/systemd say "linux is NOT about choice", but that's why I chose linux over a decade ago, for choice. If some part sucks for me, I c

> The UI/UX experts at Gnome/systemd say "linux is NOT about choice", but that's why I chose linux over a decade ago, for choice. If some part sucks for me, I can replace just that part. I don't recall them saying this at all. In fact, I would argue that Gnome's pursuit of a novel interface is very much about choice. It's not like they firebombed the xfce and KDE projects and ran away with the fortune. They said, "the window/taskbar/menu interface is widely done, let's do something else". Now, I happen to like Gnome, but like you said, if you want something else, then I agree that's what makes linux great.

ploxiln 10y ago
http://www.islinuxaboutchoice.com/ http://www.islinuxaboutchoice.com/ https://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2009/09/23/linux-is-about-choice/ https://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2009/09/23/linux-is-about-ch... https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-January/msg00920.html https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-Janua...
- stinkytaco 10y ago
  I think you are taking that out of context. He's rejecting the strawman set up in the previous email. The camera breaking due to a new module has nothing to do with "choice", it had to do with a bug. You can perhaps argue that the module was pushed too soon (as he says in the last paragraph), but throw "choice" out there every time something changes is not productive. In this case, you can't have it both ways. You can't live on the cutting edge, as Fedora does, and then complain that the cutting edge is too different than the old way. Run CentOS if that's your concern. Otherwise you only succeed in dividing the project's focus. But that's really orthogonal to the Gnome project or to the issue being discussed in that thread. Gnome3 made a decision. If you don't like it saying "linux is about choice" is meaningless. If you believed that, use something else or fork the project. That's what linux is about.
  - ploxiln 10y ago
    I've never used Fedora. As an aside, I find ArchLinux to be a much more stable bleeding-edge distro, and Ubuntu LTS to be a better stable distro. I just found some of the most obvious examples online of "linux is not about choice". But that's also the response to systemd becoming a hard dependency in most distros, because Gnome components have dependencies on systemd components. And it's the response when systemd made it harder to have /usr on a separate partition. https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/separate-usr-is-broken/ https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/separate-usr-i... And it's the response when systemd pulled in the udev tree and then started requiring devtmpfs for udev. And it's the response when you put "debug" on your kernel command line and systemd sees it and spews so much debugging output into kmsg during bootup it overloads the kernel (eventually they backed down and fixed it). And it's the response when GTK+3 3.1x made client-side decorations unconditionally enabled, breaking some window managers (eventually they backed down and fixed it). etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. They just love making life difficult for everyone else and justifying it with "linux is not about choice". ... but that's all besides the point. My point is, I agree with you: if you don't like it you can always choose to fork it (unlike Windows or macOS or a proprietary Unix). That's what Mate did. That's because linux is about choice. The philosophical opposition to that is what is wrong.
    - stinkytaco 10y ago
      I think we do agree about the gist, but the quibble is about semantics. My point is that there is no "philosophical opposition". Choice means users have a right to fork. It does not mean that every project must bend to a user's will or risk being accused of not caring about choice.
sampo 10y ago
> I would argue that Gnome's pursuit of a novel interface is very much about choice. As long as you don't try to choose e.g. vertical panels instead of the forced top panel.
- stinkytaco 10y ago
  Arguing a piece of software doesn't do what you want it to do has nothing to do with choice in the Linux world. I could just as easily complain that vim doesn't include a lisp scripting environment, ergo vim is not about choice.

ploxiln 10y ago

http://www.islinuxaboutchoice.com/ http://www.islinuxaboutchoice.com/ https://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2009/09/23/linux-is-about-choice/ https://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2009/09/23/linux-is-about-ch... https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-January/msg00920.html https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-Janua...

stinkytaco 10y ago
I think you are taking that out of context. He's rejecting the strawman set up in the previous email. The camera breaking due to a new module has nothing to do with "choice", it had to do with a bug. You can perhaps argue that the module was pushed too soon (as he says in the last paragraph), but throw "choice" out there every time something changes is not productive. In this case, you can't have it both ways. You can't live on the cutting edge, as Fedora does, and then complain that the cutting edge is too different than the old way. Run CentOS if that's your concern. Otherwise you only succeed in dividing the project's focus. But that's really orthogonal to the Gnome project or to the issue being discussed in that thread. Gnome3 made a decision. If you don't like it saying "linux is about choice" is meaningless. If you believed that, use something else or fork the project. That's what linux is about.
- ploxiln 10y ago
  I've never used Fedora. As an aside, I find ArchLinux to be a much more stable bleeding-edge distro, and Ubuntu LTS to be a better stable distro. I just found some of the most obvious examples online of "linux is not about choice". But that's also the response to systemd becoming a hard dependency in most distros, because Gnome components have dependencies on systemd components. And it's the response when systemd made it harder to have /usr on a separate partition. https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/separate-usr-is-broken/ https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/separate-usr-i... And it's the response when systemd pulled in the udev tree and then started requiring devtmpfs for udev. And it's the response when you put "debug" on your kernel command line and systemd sees it and spews so much debugging output into kmsg during bootup it overloads the kernel (eventually they backed down and fixed it). And it's the response when GTK+3 3.1x made client-side decorations unconditionally enabled, breaking some window managers (eventually they backed down and fixed it). etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. They just love making life difficult for everyone else and justifying it with "linux is not about choice". ... but that's all besides the point. My point is, I agree with you: if you don't like it you can always choose to fork it (unlike Windows or macOS or a proprietary Unix). That's what Mate did. That's because linux is about choice. The philosophical opposition to that is what is wrong.
  - stinkytaco 10y ago
    I think we do agree about the gist, but the quibble is about semantics. My point is that there is no "philosophical opposition". Choice means users have a right to fork. It does not mean that every project must bend to a user's will or risk being accused of not caring about choice.

sampo 10y ago

> I would argue that Gnome's pursuit of a novel interface is very much about choice. As long as you don't try to choose e.g. vertical panels instead of the forced top panel.

stinkytaco 10y ago
Arguing a piece of software doesn't do what you want it to do has nothing to do with choice in the Linux world. I could just as easily complain that vim doesn't include a lisp scripting environment, ergo vim is not about choice.