5 ms·

GNOME is clearly trying to imitate OS X. That much is plain to see. In doing so, it seems the devs have adopted the Apple approach; dictatorial design. In many

by aes256 14y ago

GNOME is clearly trying to imitate OS X. That much is plain to see. In doing so, it seems the devs have adopted the Apple approach; dictatorial design. In many respects this is a good thing. It gives them the good sense to say "no" to certain proposals; I'm sure there are active GNOME contributors who would prefer Nautilus to have five customizable toolbars, and the system menubar to have a mind-boggling array of system stats. No. Obviously, haters gonna hate. People who get a kick out of relentlessly customizing their desktop environment will no longer feel welcome. GNOME sold out, it went mainstream, whatever. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. This is a victory for ordinary users. This is giving the developers focus. A lot of user suggestions are just pointless distractions from the core goal, which is apparently to imitate OS X as much as possible without being called on it.

kzrdude 14y ago
But how do they sustain themselves as an open source project? The Linux kernel has never fooled itself.. it's a system that's foremost useful for its developer to use all day, and then additionally for them to apply for useful work with server/service/consumer hardware. So great, you say, not being self-centric but user-centric. That works if you are employed to create a product, but how well will it work for open source. How will they ever gain developers?
- Nursie 14y ago
  They won't. They're losing users, losing developers and losing default-install status in multiple distributions.
paulrouget 14y ago
I believe in limiting customization to improve consistency and to consolidate your identity. But if you take this path, you better ensure that your UX is rock-solid and will satisfy the majority of your users (what Apple does). I believe that the Gnome User Experience (interaction and visual) is poorly made (I have the feeling that most of the decisions here have not been made by UX people, and have not been seriously backed by user studies - but I'd be glad to be proved otherwise). I also believe that Gnome is targeting an audience they don't have, leaving their current (potential) audience frustrated.
- nical 14y ago
  I also believe that limiting customization is important. Any Firefox dev can tell how terribly hard it is to improve Firefox without breaking addons. GNOME does not have the man power of Mozilla, let alone Apple. They want to create great things by implementing them one at a time. that's the open-source way, and most free softwares are built like that. I feel the comparison with Apple is somewhat unfair, because GNOME does not have enough developers to release a complete product at every release (or should they just work in the dark and not release anything for the next 2 years?). Ubuntu is in a similar same situation, and they do improve over time. So they do it one thing at a time and try to involve as much the community as they can. If I had to direct such a project with the resources they have, I don't know that I would have made better choices. Also, my feeling about the GNOME UX, is that decisions come from UX people, and that it is the very reason it enrages us developers: we have different ways to approach interacting with a computer, we are very picky about workflows, and we tend to reject innovation if it makes us change our habits. And that's where I agree with you about leaving their current audience frustrated: GNOME wants to reach out to "normal users", but its user base is mostly hackers. It is hard to innovate in the UX space when your users have their workflows and interaction patterns burnt into their brains and fingers. I believe that someone who never touched a computer before would much prefer the GNOME UX over a more traditional desktop environments.
  - AlexandrB 14y ago
    > I also believe that limiting customization is important. Any Firefox dev can tell how terribly hard it is to improve Firefox without breaking addons. GNOME does not have the man power of Mozilla, let alone Apple. They want to create great things by implementing them one at a time. If Gnome doesn't have the resources to do proper UX design, the answer is NOT to force incomplete/broken UX on users. It's to leave options open for others to fix the UX as needed. Design is about making choices, but if you don't have the resources to find/make the best choice at least allow the end user to make the choice they prefer instead. What I find amusing though, is that even OSX allows more customization than Unity/Gnome. In OSX I can turn off backlight dimming on battery, I can move the dock to different sides of the screen (essential for multi-monitor setups), and I can also tweak other things via plists. There is also more than one screensaver.
Nursie 14y ago
LOL. Me, I like system notification areas that apps other than two or three 'official' gnome apps can use. I like to put my toolbars and menus in the place I want to have them. I don't know why you would consider this 'relentless customisation'. Gnome hasn't sold out or gone mainstream, quite the opposite - they are losing people in droves, chasing some dream of going mainstream but actually slowly sinking into obscurity.
- nical 14y ago
  > I like to put my toolbars and menus in the place I want to have them. Perhaps you don't realize the amount of work it represents to build a consistent and solid user experience while officially supporting letting the user choose where to place its notifications, toolbars, etc, and never break this customizability afterwards.
  - Nursie 14y ago
    Perhaps the Gnome developers (and you?) don't realise that most of their (Gnome 2) users prefer to have this modicum of customisation available, as it has been in most desktop environments for many years now, over some nebulous concept of a 'solid user experience'. I know, I know, I'm somehow objectively wrong for wanting this, which is fine if that's what you want to think. Like many others I left for XFCE a long time ago. --edit-- fixed typo
    - nical 14y ago
      I see your point and it is perfectly valid. I am happy that GNOME tries come up with something new since there are still some good DEs like XFCE which propose a solid and classic user experience. Choice is there for everyone to be happy. I think GNOME shell's extension mechanism actually provides developers with more customization possibilities than GNOME 2 did, only it is javascript, therefore not accessible to everyone, and not as easy and straightforward as the options we used to have 2 years ago.
      - Nursie 14y ago
ableal 14y ago
> imitate OS X as much as possible Apple could imitate a fair bit too. For instance, I'd like the OS X 10.6 Finder to be as useable as the Nautilus file manager that shipped with Ubuntu's Gnome 2 in 2010.
- aes256 14y ago
  I'm racking my brain and can't think of any significant changes I'd make to the latest version of Finder (referring to Mountain Lion, 10.8 here). It looks great and does everything I want it to do with a minimum of fuss. The version of Nautilus shipping with GNOME 3 is obviously very heavily inspired by this version of Finder.
  - Zirro 14y ago
    I must say I agree. I'm not sure if it's because I've used OS X long enough (a couple of years) to no longer notice its flaws, or if I've simply found "the way you're supposed to use it". The only thing I find myself missing is a way to move up the file-structure without having to switch to the list-view when you've opened a folder without actually navigating your way to it through Finder. Essentially, the "Back"-arrow would take you to the parent folder even if you didn't navigate from it.
    - aes256 14y ago
      > The only thing I find myself missing is a way to move up the file-structure without having to switch to the list-view when you've opened a folder without actually navigating your way to it through Finder. Essentially, the "Back"-arrow would take you to the parent folder even if you didn't navigate from it. Isn't that just Cmd+Up?
      - Zirro 14y ago
        Thank you (and you too, DeepDuh)! I must get around to learning more keyboard-shortcuts :)
    - DeepDuh 14y ago
kaolinite 14y ago
The problem is that there are few "ordinary users" currently using Gnome and as the technical users leave Gnome because it's not as useful to them anymore, they're losing their main source of advertising and endorsement. OS X is a pretty good example of how an operating system can be simple enough for regular users to use but still have advanced options that power users and technical users require. I understand why they're attempting to copy it, but I don't think they're going about it in the right way.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  > as the technical users leave Gnome because it's not as useful to them anymore [citation needed] I'm fairly technical and I'm not leaving Gnome. There was a time I spent hours downloading themes, sometimes building my own from them, so that I'd have the "perfect" desktop, but not anymore. The most time I lost in the last 6 months was tweaking my init.el file so my Emacs would start with everything I need to work comfortably. I also built a console font so my terminals and text editors would mitigate my 3278 nostalgia (https://github.com/rbanffy/3270font https://github.com/rbanffy/3270font). A theme is just a theme. We don't have to fight much over it. API breakage, OTOH, is a problem. Anyone who develops for Gnome should have a continuous testing install somewhere running tests against the latest master branch to prevent nasty surprises down the road. Also, people who develop apps and feel Gnome is going in the wrong direction should get involved in Gnome development. App (and theme) developers are the users of Gnome's APIs much like I am a Firefox user. If it "feels wrong", I'll get in touch with the developers and try to help fixing it. Ranting is not going to help.
  - kaolinite 14y ago
    I left a few months ago (now I run a mixture of OS X and Linux with Openbox) and I know I'm not alone. I'm afraid that I can't post statistics - although I'd be very interested to see them, if there are any - however the general feeling I get is that a lot of users are very unhappy. Here's one high profile incident, which I'm sure you'll have seen: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/05/linus_slams_gnome_three/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/05/linus_slams_gnome_th... I've also spoken to a few of the developers of the core Gnome applications and morale, from what I've seen, seems to be pretty low with some groups of developers simply refusing to implement changes planned by the design team. I'm very concerned about the project - I think the new vision will lose them both users and developers, at a time when they need them more than ever.
RivieraKid 14y ago
Well, apparently, this imitation strategy seems to be a massive fail. At least if we take user satisfaction as the primary metric.
mgkimsal 14y ago
I don't think the criticism is solely because features are missing; it's the fact that existing features are removed and the process by which those changes are communicated ahead of time (seemingly, they're not).
- aes256 14y ago
  It's the same philosophy underpinning OS X. The UI should do what it is supposed to do, do it well, and do no more. "Get out of my way" design at its best. Removing customization options and features that are not seen to be necessary is an inevitable part of the transition to this philosophy. GNOME is positioning itself as a more simple, user-friendly desktop environment. Quite frankly, if total customization is your thing, there are plenty of other options available to you.
  - mgkimsal 14y ago
    It's not my thing. I do think it's pretty poor form to take out APIs without some more advanced warning and heads up to the community than apparently the gnome team provides. Whatever they think they're doing in terms of communicating their roadmap/plans/vision wrt their API, it's certainly not enough based on this sort of feedback.

by aes256 14y ago

kzrdude 14y ago

But how do they sustain themselves as an open source project? The Linux kernel has never fooled itself.. it's a system that's foremost useful for its developer to use all day, and then additionally for them to apply for useful work with server/service/consumer hardware. So great, you say, not being self-centric but user-centric. That works if you are employed to create a product, but how well will it work for open source. How will they ever gain developers?

Nursie 14y ago
They won't. They're losing users, losing developers and losing default-install status in multiple distributions.

paulrouget 14y ago

I believe in limiting customization to improve consistency and to consolidate your identity. But if you take this path, you better ensure that your UX is rock-solid and will satisfy the majority of your users (what Apple does). I believe that the Gnome User Experience (interaction and visual) is poorly made (I have the feeling that most of the decisions here have not been made by UX people, and have not been seriously backed by user studies - but I'd be glad to be proved otherwise). I also believe that Gnome is targeting an audience they don't have, leaving their current (potential) audience frustrated.

nical 14y ago
I also believe that limiting customization is important. Any Firefox dev can tell how terribly hard it is to improve Firefox without breaking addons. GNOME does not have the man power of Mozilla, let alone Apple. They want to create great things by implementing them one at a time. that's the open-source way, and most free softwares are built like that. I feel the comparison with Apple is somewhat unfair, because GNOME does not have enough developers to release a complete product at every release (or should they just work in the dark and not release anything for the next 2 years?). Ubuntu is in a similar same situation, and they do improve over time. So they do it one thing at a time and try to involve as much the community as they can. If I had to direct such a project with the resources they have, I don't know that I would have made better choices. Also, my feeling about the GNOME UX, is that decisions come from UX people, and that it is the very reason it enrages us developers: we have different ways to approach interacting with a computer, we are very picky about workflows, and we tend to reject innovation if it makes us change our habits. And that's where I agree with you about leaving their current audience frustrated: GNOME wants to reach out to "normal users", but its user base is mostly hackers. It is hard to innovate in the UX space when your users have their workflows and interaction patterns burnt into their brains and fingers. I believe that someone who never touched a computer before would much prefer the GNOME UX over a more traditional desktop environments.
- AlexandrB 14y ago
  > I also believe that limiting customization is important. Any Firefox dev can tell how terribly hard it is to improve Firefox without breaking addons. GNOME does not have the man power of Mozilla, let alone Apple. They want to create great things by implementing them one at a time. If Gnome doesn't have the resources to do proper UX design, the answer is NOT to force incomplete/broken UX on users. It's to leave options open for others to fix the UX as needed. Design is about making choices, but if you don't have the resources to find/make the best choice at least allow the end user to make the choice they prefer instead. What I find amusing though, is that even OSX allows more customization than Unity/Gnome. In OSX I can turn off backlight dimming on battery, I can move the dock to different sides of the screen (essential for multi-monitor setups), and I can also tweak other things via plists. There is also more than one screensaver.

Nursie 14y ago

LOL. Me, I like system notification areas that apps other than two or three 'official' gnome apps can use. I like to put my toolbars and menus in the place I want to have them. I don't know why you would consider this 'relentless customisation'. Gnome hasn't sold out or gone mainstream, quite the opposite - they are losing people in droves, chasing some dream of going mainstream but actually slowly sinking into obscurity.

nical 14y ago
> I like to put my toolbars and menus in the place I want to have them. Perhaps you don't realize the amount of work it represents to build a consistent and solid user experience while officially supporting letting the user choose where to place its notifications, toolbars, etc, and never break this customizability afterwards.
- Nursie 14y ago
  Perhaps the Gnome developers (and you?) don't realise that most of their (Gnome 2) users prefer to have this modicum of customisation available, as it has been in most desktop environments for many years now, over some nebulous concept of a 'solid user experience'. I know, I know, I'm somehow objectively wrong for wanting this, which is fine if that's what you want to think. Like many others I left for XFCE a long time ago. --edit-- fixed typo
  - nical 14y ago
    I see your point and it is perfectly valid. I am happy that GNOME tries come up with something new since there are still some good DEs like XFCE which propose a solid and classic user experience. Choice is there for everyone to be happy. I think GNOME shell's extension mechanism actually provides developers with more customization possibilities than GNOME 2 did, only it is javascript, therefore not accessible to everyone, and not as easy and straightforward as the options we used to have 2 years ago.
    - Nursie 14y ago

ableal 14y ago

> imitate OS X as much as possible Apple could imitate a fair bit too. For instance, I'd like the OS X 10.6 Finder to be as useable as the Nautilus file manager that shipped with Ubuntu's Gnome 2 in 2010.

aes256 14y ago
I'm racking my brain and can't think of any significant changes I'd make to the latest version of Finder (referring to Mountain Lion, 10.8 here). It looks great and does everything I want it to do with a minimum of fuss. The version of Nautilus shipping with GNOME 3 is obviously very heavily inspired by this version of Finder.
- Zirro 14y ago
  I must say I agree. I'm not sure if it's because I've used OS X long enough (a couple of years) to no longer notice its flaws, or if I've simply found "the way you're supposed to use it". The only thing I find myself missing is a way to move up the file-structure without having to switch to the list-view when you've opened a folder without actually navigating your way to it through Finder. Essentially, the "Back"-arrow would take you to the parent folder even if you didn't navigate from it.
  - aes256 14y ago
    > The only thing I find myself missing is a way to move up the file-structure without having to switch to the list-view when you've opened a folder without actually navigating your way to it through Finder. Essentially, the "Back"-arrow would take you to the parent folder even if you didn't navigate from it. Isn't that just Cmd+Up?
    - Zirro 14y ago
      Thank you (and you too, DeepDuh)! I must get around to learning more keyboard-shortcuts :)
  - DeepDuh 14y ago

kaolinite 14y ago

The problem is that there are few "ordinary users" currently using Gnome and as the technical users leave Gnome because it's not as useful to them anymore, they're losing their main source of advertising and endorsement. OS X is a pretty good example of how an operating system can be simple enough for regular users to use but still have advanced options that power users and technical users require. I understand why they're attempting to copy it, but I don't think they're going about it in the right way.

rbanffy 14y ago
> as the technical users leave Gnome because it's not as useful to them anymore [citation needed] I'm fairly technical and I'm not leaving Gnome. There was a time I spent hours downloading themes, sometimes building my own from them, so that I'd have the "perfect" desktop, but not anymore. The most time I lost in the last 6 months was tweaking my init.el file so my Emacs would start with everything I need to work comfortably. I also built a console font so my terminals and text editors would mitigate my 3278 nostalgia (https://github.com/rbanffy/3270font https://github.com/rbanffy/3270font). A theme is just a theme. We don't have to fight much over it. API breakage, OTOH, is a problem. Anyone who develops for Gnome should have a continuous testing install somewhere running tests against the latest master branch to prevent nasty surprises down the road. Also, people who develop apps and feel Gnome is going in the wrong direction should get involved in Gnome development. App (and theme) developers are the users of Gnome's APIs much like I am a Firefox user. If it "feels wrong", I'll get in touch with the developers and try to help fixing it. Ranting is not going to help.
- kaolinite 14y ago
  I left a few months ago (now I run a mixture of OS X and Linux with Openbox) and I know I'm not alone. I'm afraid that I can't post statistics - although I'd be very interested to see them, if there are any - however the general feeling I get is that a lot of users are very unhappy. Here's one high profile incident, which I'm sure you'll have seen: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/05/linus_slams_gnome_three/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/05/linus_slams_gnome_th... I've also spoken to a few of the developers of the core Gnome applications and morale, from what I've seen, seems to be pretty low with some groups of developers simply refusing to implement changes planned by the design team. I'm very concerned about the project - I think the new vision will lose them both users and developers, at a time when they need them more than ever.

RivieraKid 14y ago

Well, apparently, this imitation strategy seems to be a massive fail. At least if we take user satisfaction as the primary metric.

mgkimsal 14y ago

I don't think the criticism is solely because features are missing; it's the fact that existing features are removed and the process by which those changes are communicated ahead of time (seemingly, they're not).

aes256 14y ago
It's the same philosophy underpinning OS X. The UI should do what it is supposed to do, do it well, and do no more. "Get out of my way" design at its best. Removing customization options and features that are not seen to be necessary is an inevitable part of the transition to this philosophy. GNOME is positioning itself as a more simple, user-friendly desktop environment. Quite frankly, if total customization is your thing, there are plenty of other options available to you.
- mgkimsal 14y ago
  It's not my thing. I do think it's pretty poor form to take out APIs without some more advanced warning and heads up to the community than apparently the gnome team provides. Whatever they think they're doing in terms of communicating their roadmap/plans/vision wrt their API, it's certainly not enough based on this sort of feedback.