3 ms·

> you can argue it's the distros decision Is this not a fact, versus a mere argument? Do you think the decision is not based on merit? b/c there's all the eff

by Chris2048 6y ago

> you can argue it's the distros decision Is this not a fact, versus a mere argument? Do you think the decision is not based on merit? b/c there's all the effective distros switching, versus you saying nothing is broken - one of you must be wrong? Maybe the Linux ecosystem is broken, you just can't say it because you've already adjusted you expectations, or solidified your use case(s)?

anotherhue 6y ago
No other package upgrade causes me to wonder "what will this subsume today?"
- Chris2048 6y ago
  Few other packages are as fundamental
lmm 6y ago
RedHat made the decision based on their commercial interests, not technical merit, and since RedHat de facto controls GNOME anyone who wanted to keep shipping GNOME had to fall into line. Debian were probably the only distro who had enough clout to push back against GNOME, and there was a bitter political fight there (the decision was certainly not based on technical merit, nor did the committee even follow their own rules). Slackware wisely chose to drop GNOME but most distros didn't dare; Ubuntu tried to go their own way for a while but they couldn't maintain everything on their own. Honestly the whole thing made me more or less give up on open-source as a development model. Good programmers are expensive, especially if you want them to do the boring maintenance work, and that funding has to come from somewhere. The "give the program away for free and sell consulting" business model works up to a point, but it distorts maintainers' interests away from what would actually benefit the majority of users. While I do blame RedHat, the real problem is that no-one except RedHat is paying people to work full-time on GNOME or any of dozens of similarly important projects (KDE seems to be mostly funded by the EU, which is a much healthier model, but I don't know if you could make a whole distribution from projects like that).
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Exactly, complain is easy, but only Red-Hat, Ubuntu and a couple of others are willing to put in the money. Having been born during 70's I also saw all those ideals turn into business people the following decade. It is easy to be idealistic when others put in the money.
- rcxdude 6y ago
  90% of the switch was because systemd made the distributions job much easier: it basically replaced a bunch of effort each distribution had to maintain themselves. There really was not a lot of political pressure as systemd opponents seem to imply.

anotherhue 6y ago

No other package upgrade causes me to wonder "what will this subsume today?"

Chris2048 6y ago
Few other packages are as fundamental

lmm 6y ago

RedHat made the decision based on their commercial interests, not technical merit, and since RedHat de facto controls GNOME anyone who wanted to keep shipping GNOME had to fall into line. Debian were probably the only distro who had enough clout to push back against GNOME, and there was a bitter political fight there (the decision was certainly not based on technical merit, nor did the committee even follow their own rules). Slackware wisely chose to drop GNOME but most distros didn't dare; Ubuntu tried to go their own way for a while but they couldn't maintain everything on their own. Honestly the whole thing made me more or less give up on open-source as a development model. Good programmers are expensive, especially if you want them to do the boring maintenance work, and that funding has to come from somewhere. The "give the program away for free and sell consulting" business model works up to a point, but it distorts maintainers' interests away from what would actually benefit the majority of users. While I do blame RedHat, the real problem is that no-one except RedHat is paying people to work full-time on GNOME or any of dozens of similarly important projects (KDE seems to be mostly funded by the EU, which is a much healthier model, but I don't know if you could make a whole distribution from projects like that).

pjmlp 6y ago
Exactly, complain is easy, but only Red-Hat, Ubuntu and a couple of others are willing to put in the money. Having been born during 70's I also saw all those ideals turn into business people the following decade. It is easy to be idealistic when others put in the money.
rcxdude 6y ago
90% of the switch was because systemd made the distributions job much easier: it basically replaced a bunch of effort each distribution had to maintain themselves. There really was not a lot of political pressure as systemd opponents seem to imply.