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Many people do desire the feature to change themes. A big reason to choose open source in the first place is the flexibility in customization that it brings. It

Many people do desire the feature to change themes. A big reason to choose open source in the first place is the flexibility in customization that it brings. It's the opposite of the "Apple mindset" that there's one good way and that's the Steve way.

ugh 16y ago
Many people do desire the feature to change themes. Do they? A big reason to choose open source in the first place is the flexibility in customization that it brings. It's the opposite of the "Apple mindset" that there's one good way and that's the Steve way. I think you are mischaracterizing Apple’s mindset. It’s not about finding the one good way, it’s about finding a good way and the assumption that most people are not interested in tweaking that. I do not think that all open source projects have to slavishly follow some sort of central ideology of maximum customization. There are enough alternatives to Gnome that it would be no problem at all for Gnome to be different. For those who really need it crazy customizability is certainly available.
- wladimir 16y ago
  Yes, the Apple mindset assumes that there is a good way and people are not interested in tweaking that. You can agree or disagree with that. I do agree that a sane set of defaults is good. It should be usable without customization. But for one, I am interested in tweaking things. From the operating system to how things look. That's why I use open source. Isn't that the original hacker spirit?
  - ugh 16y ago
    It is but various Open Source projects do want to cater to many more people than just hackers. There are several open source desktop environments, they don’t all have to have hackers as their target group, have they? Just looking at Gnome’s website I would argue that maybe Gnome just isn’t for you and that there is nothing wrong with that.
    - wladimir 16y ago
      You can tell that by just looking at Gnome's website? I've been using Gnome for >10 years now. I've never had any big complaints about it (well except for gedit not having a "replace in selection" feature, but there's a plugin for that). Gnome has excellent customization and theming facilities through GTK themes. I also think the Gnome defaults are pretty good. I've also used KDE and like it but tend to choose Gnome as I'm used to it. Apple, however, I wouldn't buy because it locks me in too much for my taste. I don't like cages, even cosy golden ones :)
mhw 16y ago
I think the problem in the past has been that developers in general (commercial as well as open source) have chosen to build 'flexibility' and 'customisation' over thinking user interface design through, making a decision about the way something should work and sticking with it. It's a somewhat rational response to bikeshedding: if you can't please all the users, make it configurable and let the users indulge in bikeshedding to their hearts' content - just keep it outside of the source tree. Thankfully the ascendency of good user interface design on the web and in successful consumer products (notably, though not exclusively, from Apple) has started to place value on clean, well thought-out user interfaces. I think one of the things that Gnome has achieved over the years is removing lots of configuration options, and battling the hostile responses of a vocal minority who would choose complexity for everyone so that they can tweak any minor detail. Remember the backlash when Gnome replaced Sawfish with Metacity as its default window manager, and users could no longer script the window manager in a dialect of Lisp? I'm all for options to personalise the user interface where it make sense, but if I have to start configuring your software in order to make it usable for the job it's supposed to be designed for, you've failed.
- wladimir 16y ago
  I certainly agree with you there. Customization is important but the first priority of a program is that people should be able to do their work productively without changing any setting. There's also fine-grained customization versus "themes". Themes do allow people to give their own feel to a device/program/site, without them having to worry about individual settings. I've always been a proponent of the idea that fine-grained customization should be possible, but you can hide it (this is what GNOME does). Just don't make it illegal to customize for the people that really want to (this is where Apple seems to be going; I don't want to break laws to make a device do what I want). Edit: I happy when they introduces Metacity in place of Sawfish. Sawfish was simply too complex for its own good, GNOME had taken over most of the window manager duties itself and thus the wm should simply manage windows and get out the way.

ugh 16y ago

Many people do desire the feature to change themes. Do they? A big reason to choose open source in the first place is the flexibility in customization that it brings. It's the opposite of the "Apple mindset" that there's one good way and that's the Steve way. I think you are mischaracterizing Apple’s mindset. It’s not about finding the one good way, it’s about finding a good way and the assumption that most people are not interested in tweaking that. I do not think that all open source projects have to slavishly follow some sort of central ideology of maximum customization. There are enough alternatives to Gnome that it would be no problem at all for Gnome to be different. For those who really need it crazy customizability is certainly available.

wladimir 16y ago
Yes, the Apple mindset assumes that there is a good way and people are not interested in tweaking that. You can agree or disagree with that. I do agree that a sane set of defaults is good. It should be usable without customization. But for one, I am interested in tweaking things. From the operating system to how things look. That's why I use open source. Isn't that the original hacker spirit?
- ugh 16y ago
  It is but various Open Source projects do want to cater to many more people than just hackers. There are several open source desktop environments, they don’t all have to have hackers as their target group, have they? Just looking at Gnome’s website I would argue that maybe Gnome just isn’t for you and that there is nothing wrong with that.
  - wladimir 16y ago
    You can tell that by just looking at Gnome's website? I've been using Gnome for >10 years now. I've never had any big complaints about it (well except for gedit not having a "replace in selection" feature, but there's a plugin for that). Gnome has excellent customization and theming facilities through GTK themes. I also think the Gnome defaults are pretty good. I've also used KDE and like it but tend to choose Gnome as I'm used to it. Apple, however, I wouldn't buy because it locks me in too much for my taste. I don't like cages, even cosy golden ones :)

mhw 16y ago

I think the problem in the past has been that developers in general (commercial as well as open source) have chosen to build 'flexibility' and 'customisation' over thinking user interface design through, making a decision about the way something should work and sticking with it. It's a somewhat rational response to bikeshedding: if you can't please all the users, make it configurable and let the users indulge in bikeshedding to their hearts' content - just keep it outside of the source tree. Thankfully the ascendency of good user interface design on the web and in successful consumer products (notably, though not exclusively, from Apple) has started to place value on clean, well thought-out user interfaces. I think one of the things that Gnome has achieved over the years is removing lots of configuration options, and battling the hostile responses of a vocal minority who would choose complexity for everyone so that they can tweak any minor detail. Remember the backlash when Gnome replaced Sawfish with Metacity as its default window manager, and users could no longer script the window manager in a dialect of Lisp? I'm all for options to personalise the user interface where it make sense, but if I have to start configuring your software in order to make it usable for the job it's supposed to be designed for, you've failed.

wladimir 16y ago
I certainly agree with you there. Customization is important but the first priority of a program is that people should be able to do their work productively without changing any setting. There's also fine-grained customization versus "themes". Themes do allow people to give their own feel to a device/program/site, without them having to worry about individual settings. I've always been a proponent of the idea that fine-grained customization should be possible, but you can hide it (this is what GNOME does). Just don't make it illegal to customize for the people that really want to (this is where Apple seems to be going; I don't want to break laws to make a device do what I want). Edit: I happy when they introduces Metacity in place of Sawfish. Sawfish was simply too complex for its own good, GNOME had taken over most of the window manager duties itself and thus the wm should simply manage windows and get out the way.