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The GNOME/KDE development model is pretty strange. They release a new major version that changes everything so they spend years fixing and stabilizing, and the

by jolan 15y ago

The GNOME/KDE development model is pretty strange. They release a new major version that changes everything so they spend years fixing and stabilizing, and then they release another major version and repeat the process. XFCE does a better job. "XFCE4" has been around for 7 years and they provide small improvements but don't make any radical changes. Unity was pushed out before it was ready. I understand the need to get people using it but it's still not a passable desktop for many people and probably won't be for another couple of Ubuntu release cycles. Hopefully once it stabilizes they won't repeat the mistakes of GNOME/KDE and decide to change everything again.

wmf 15y ago
They release a new major version that changes everything so they spend years fixing and stabilizing, and then they release another major version and repeat the process. This is inevitable when you either set your sights too low (and after a while realize that your current architecture will never get you where you need to be) or develop too slowly (so by the time something is finished the market has moved on).
- rubinelli 15y ago
  Personally, I think it has more to do with the fact that very few people want to fix old bugs in an old codebase in their free time when they could be writing a brand new version with brand new bugs. "This time, we'll make better bugs!"
  - wmf 15y ago
    Yes, there's also that. http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
pyre 15y ago
> Unity was pushed out before it was ready. I think that this is the real rub here.
- tooearly 15y ago
  Unity was first released in Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition. And that was based on Ubuntu Netbook Remix, first released in 8.04 (they didn't necessarily share code, but the design was similar). You would think that by 11.10, released a month ago, they would have something release-quality. I think it's just the design that people don't like. Canonical has the resources to fix bugs, but they don't necessarily have the desire to fix design defects.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - pyre 15y ago
    I don't have experience with 11.10 yet but I am running 11.04. 1) On a number of occassions the sidebar has entered a wedged state and required a logout tofix even though I tried to find a process to kill to force it to restart. 2) Often windows will pop to the fore-front but fail to capture focus and the previously focussed window will only have partial focus, where application level keyboard shortcuts are registered but window manager ones aren't. This mainly happens when running most windows full screen on my netbook. 3) Often the update manager window will pop up and enter some weird state whereit doesn't have focus, and it renders as if it's in fullscreen mode (no titlebar) but it's at the regular windowed size. 4) There is also the attempt to generate the osx MDI-esque interface, even though it's only hal-implemented. (from what I understand they have improved this in 11.10, but they should have waited, IMO)
  - gujk 15y ago
    It is hard for a dev to say a crash is a feature. It is easy for a designer to say an unusable UI is an intentional exploration of a new paradigm for modality in transhuman existence.
flomo 15y ago
It's a common scenario in the open source world. Projects get bogged down in personality or leadership issues, and it's a lot more fun to write something new rather than maintain some other guy's code. It's funny that problems that have bedeviled the Linux Desktop haven't really changed over the last 10 years. Poor release QA, "almost there" hardware support, painful transitions from X to Y. Nothing ever really stabilizes.

by jolan 15y ago

wmf 15y ago

They release a new major version that changes everything so they spend years fixing and stabilizing, and then they release another major version and repeat the process. This is inevitable when you either set your sights too low (and after a while realize that your current architecture will never get you where you need to be) or develop too slowly (so by the time something is finished the market has moved on).

rubinelli 15y ago
Personally, I think it has more to do with the fact that very few people want to fix old bugs in an old codebase in their free time when they could be writing a brand new version with brand new bugs. "This time, we'll make better bugs!"
- wmf 15y ago
  Yes, there's also that. http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html

pyre 15y ago

> Unity was pushed out before it was ready. I think that this is the real rub here.

tooearly 15y ago
Unity was first released in Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition. And that was based on Ubuntu Netbook Remix, first released in 8.04 (they didn't necessarily share code, but the design was similar). You would think that by 11.10, released a month ago, they would have something release-quality. I think it's just the design that people don't like. Canonical has the resources to fix bugs, but they don't necessarily have the desire to fix design defects.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- pyre 15y ago
  I don't have experience with 11.10 yet but I am running 11.04. 1) On a number of occassions the sidebar has entered a wedged state and required a logout tofix even though I tried to find a process to kill to force it to restart. 2) Often windows will pop to the fore-front but fail to capture focus and the previously focussed window will only have partial focus, where application level keyboard shortcuts are registered but window manager ones aren't. This mainly happens when running most windows full screen on my netbook. 3) Often the update manager window will pop up and enter some weird state whereit doesn't have focus, and it renders as if it's in fullscreen mode (no titlebar) but it's at the regular windowed size. 4) There is also the attempt to generate the osx MDI-esque interface, even though it's only hal-implemented. (from what I understand they have improved this in 11.10, but they should have waited, IMO)
- gujk 15y ago
  It is hard for a dev to say a crash is a feature. It is easy for a designer to say an unusable UI is an intentional exploration of a new paradigm for modality in transhuman existence.

flomo 15y ago

It's a common scenario in the open source world. Projects get bogged down in personality or leadership issues, and it's a lot more fun to write something new rather than maintain some other guy's code. It's funny that problems that have bedeviled the Linux Desktop haven't really changed over the last 10 years. Poor release QA, "almost there" hardware support, painful transitions from X to Y. Nothing ever really stabilizes.