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I really can't agree, the GNOME stuff I've used as a developer has been great for me. Keep in mind that no software project will ever be able to accept all poss

by md8z 5y ago

I really can't agree, the GNOME stuff I've used as a developer has been great for me. Keep in mind that no software project will ever be able to accept all possible feature requests or pull requests, for example I wouldn't expect System76 to accept everything that comes their way either. They have a specific design they're trying to meet too and that requires focusing on some things and disregarding others. I don't think they are trying to aim for something that is so good that it obsoletes everything else, that's unrealistic, you would have to invest a really large amount of money to even have a chance of doing that.

hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
My particular gripe is with GTK readahead (or type ahead, idk), which was added with no ability to disable, permanently changing the behaviour of open dialogs. Patches were submitted with added a configuration to the registry (or whatever it’s called in gnome land) which we’re ignored. I know at some point torvalds raised similar patches for UI element placement and was ignored. Obviously they have no obligation to do things that subsets of users want, but the result of that is people like me, who will laugh when they become obsolete.
- md8z 5y ago
  All patches have a maintenance cost, different projects have different thresholds for what they will accept and what they won't, that's completely ordinary. Not anything I've seen specific to GNOME or KDE or any other project. You can shop patches around to see if various other people want it but if nobody wants it, then maybe it's a problem with your patch. Some features I used have been dropped too, I just adjusted my workflow to the new way. It's not hard to do, especially if you are already used to switching desktops. IMO it is bad form to laugh at developers and hope a project becomes obsolete, I doubt you will win any friends or change any minds that way. It's not personal against you if someone declines to implement a feature.
  - arp242 5y ago
    People are literally maintaining forks for this small change. I'd say there is a demand. This kind of hand-wavy "all patched have a maintenance cost" and "just adjust your workflow" is why people dislike Gnome/GTK. Call me strange, but it has always seemed to me that software should adjust to the human, and not the other way around. And in this specific case, it's also not even true since they explicitly disable the default behaviour for the file browser and then plug in their new behaviour. The patch to disable that is trivial, so "maintenance cost" is not only hand-wavy, it's also simply not true. Also see a previous write-up I did on another Gnome issue that's a really bad look for the Gnome folks: https://lobste.rs/s/ky5yop/gnome_has_no_thumbnails_file_picker_my#c_4sbrjl https://lobste.rs/s/ky5yop/gnome_has_no_thumbnails_file_pick...
    - md8z 5y ago
      I have not really seen much popularity for those forks. And I'm honestly not trying to handwave anything away. This is like, literally every open source project. You have to adjust your workflow to use anything, a desktop can't do that for you. If you decide "I hate GNOME/XFCE/KDE/whatever I'm never going to use it" and then switch to something else then you have to adjust your workflow again and then they have to pay the maintenance cost. So I really do not get why there is so much resistance to any particular project pushing a certain workflow, or what you want me to say that would make you happy. I hope you can understand if someone refuses to ever take "no" as an answer to a feature request than it is probably that person who is being unreasonable there, that is going to guarantee that they face disappointment. I apologize if this seems on-the-nose but this started as a response to someone claiming that some behavior is hostile, so I think it is really important to re-adjust the expectations here. I'm really disappointed to see the thumbnail thing get brought up yet again, it's extremely exhausting to keep having to come back to that issue over and over. None of those patches in your comment appear to have ever been finished for various reasons. We could get into it and try to play the blame game here but also I hope you can understand how that isn't helpful. I know you are posting it in good faith, and if you have something new to add to the conversation that would move it forward and resolve the situation then I'd be glad to listen. But otherwise I have to say I'm sorry, I am not interested to go pick apart 5, 10, 15 year old comments on a bug tracker. Especially if the end goal is just speculating at how we think some developers may or may not have acted like jerks. Edit: And I don't even work on this stuff, I bet you can imagine how the GNOME people feel after getting brigaded every few months from reddit and 4chan commenters complaining about how something isn't done yet...

by md8z 5y ago

hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago

My particular gripe is with GTK readahead (or type ahead, idk), which was added with no ability to disable, permanently changing the behaviour of open dialogs. Patches were submitted with added a configuration to the registry (or whatever it’s called in gnome land) which we’re ignored. I know at some point torvalds raised similar patches for UI element placement and was ignored. Obviously they have no obligation to do things that subsets of users want, but the result of that is people like me, who will laugh when they become obsolete.

md8z 5y ago
All patches have a maintenance cost, different projects have different thresholds for what they will accept and what they won't, that's completely ordinary. Not anything I've seen specific to GNOME or KDE or any other project. You can shop patches around to see if various other people want it but if nobody wants it, then maybe it's a problem with your patch. Some features I used have been dropped too, I just adjusted my workflow to the new way. It's not hard to do, especially if you are already used to switching desktops. IMO it is bad form to laugh at developers and hope a project becomes obsolete, I doubt you will win any friends or change any minds that way. It's not personal against you if someone declines to implement a feature.
- arp242 5y ago
  People are literally maintaining forks for this small change. I'd say there is a demand. This kind of hand-wavy "all patched have a maintenance cost" and "just adjust your workflow" is why people dislike Gnome/GTK. Call me strange, but it has always seemed to me that software should adjust to the human, and not the other way around. And in this specific case, it's also not even true since they explicitly disable the default behaviour for the file browser and then plug in their new behaviour. The patch to disable that is trivial, so "maintenance cost" is not only hand-wavy, it's also simply not true. Also see a previous write-up I did on another Gnome issue that's a really bad look for the Gnome folks: https://lobste.rs/s/ky5yop/gnome_has_no_thumbnails_file_picker_my#c_4sbrjl https://lobste.rs/s/ky5yop/gnome_has_no_thumbnails_file_pick...
  - md8z 5y ago
    I have not really seen much popularity for those forks. And I'm honestly not trying to handwave anything away. This is like, literally every open source project. You have to adjust your workflow to use anything, a desktop can't do that for you. If you decide "I hate GNOME/XFCE/KDE/whatever I'm never going to use it" and then switch to something else then you have to adjust your workflow again and then they have to pay the maintenance cost. So I really do not get why there is so much resistance to any particular project pushing a certain workflow, or what you want me to say that would make you happy. I hope you can understand if someone refuses to ever take "no" as an answer to a feature request than it is probably that person who is being unreasonable there, that is going to guarantee that they face disappointment. I apologize if this seems on-the-nose but this started as a response to someone claiming that some behavior is hostile, so I think it is really important to re-adjust the expectations here. I'm really disappointed to see the thumbnail thing get brought up yet again, it's extremely exhausting to keep having to come back to that issue over and over. None of those patches in your comment appear to have ever been finished for various reasons. We could get into it and try to play the blame game here but also I hope you can understand how that isn't helpful. I know you are posting it in good faith, and if you have something new to add to the conversation that would move it forward and resolve the situation then I'd be glad to listen. But otherwise I have to say I'm sorry, I am not interested to go pick apart 5, 10, 15 year old comments on a bug tracker. Especially if the end goal is just speculating at how we think some developers may or may not have acted like jerks. Edit: And I don't even work on this stuff, I bet you can imagine how the GNOME people feel after getting brigaded every few months from reddit and 4chan commenters complaining about how something isn't done yet...