6 ms·

It doesn't change the fact that they basically took a dump on people's heads for daring to dislike being forced into a radical interface change.

hippich 12y ago
If you do not change - some people will complain, if you do change - other people will complain. Some people will always complain. This is open source product and if enough designers/developers will feel it is going into wrong direction, I am pretty sure it will be forked. And for people who like gnome2 experience - there is mate desktop. So it looks like most cases are covered.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  >If you do not change - some people will complain, if you do change - other people will complain. Some people will always complain. This is a thought-terminating justification for anything.
  - mwfunk 12y ago
    I don't think that's meant as a justification for anything, just a statement of fact. Open source projects are heavily dependent on electronic communication (mailing lists, forums, etc.) for everything from feature planning to user feedback, but what all of those mediums have in common is that people are 100x more likely to post that they hate than that they like something. So, it really is true that no matter what you do or don't do, seemingly everyone on the Internet is going to hate it, when in fact that's just a very vocal minority. Point being, even GNOME 3 (or Unity...) levels of vocal online user hate don't necessarily mean that a meaningful percentage of the user base actually dislikes the changes. Feedback should always be read and reflected on, just not followed slavishly. If you just try to avoid Internet hate from users, you'll never change anything, and even that philosophy will garner you a continuous stream of heated forum posts about how nothing ever changes. It's kind of like reading Yelp reviews. In the aggregate, they help some places stand out from the crowd, but they're still not any sort of objective judgement on the place being reviewed. You always have to think about where the reviewer is coming from and take that into account. For example, dumbasses who go to some incredibly popular and trendy restaraunt at 7:30pm on Friday without reservations, and then post negative reviews because they had to wait too long for a table. Well, duh. In the software world, the equivalent would be complaints about a piece of software not being just like X (where X could be a previous version, or some competitor), when in fact your entire goal is to create something unlike X. If someone wants X and you're making Y, then have to take "Y sucks because it's not X!" complaints with a massive grain of salt. It still doesn't mean you ignore those complaints (maybe Y was a bad idea?), but you wouldn't be doing anyone any favors by doing the most common Open Source thing, which would be to either say, "oh well, I guess we'll stop making Y and just make another X instead", or (even worse, and sadly even more common), "I know, we'll make everyone happy by making something that's both an X and a Y! We can just put a checkbox in the settings!"
    - pessimizer 12y ago
      I'm saying that when your arguments can be used to justify either imposing sharia law, pulling your child out of public school, or changing the body design of the next years 200cc Vespa - it's really just an argument for doing what you want when you want. Why the need to rationalize it? Why the need to insult the people who do object as anomalies of human behavior, an emergent result of complex constrained random interactions, or Haters? People who want to do, and can do, don't have to justify anything. If what you want is to do the right thing (rather than a more concrete goal) then instead of (pseudo)accepting objections to your decisions as inevitable and to be ignored, why not address them individually, and on their merits? Let's pretend that the world is complex, and there's something left for all of us to discover about human behavior and what's easier, harder, and more productive for people.
danford 12y ago
The GNOME Devs did the right thing though. They are open source so the community can fork anything they want and there are plenty of other really similar DEs. Ubuntu and GNOME can't compete with modern UIs without making something that's multi-platform oriented. I believe GNOME 3 and Unity actually have the right ideas when it comes to convergent interfaces, whereas Microsoft just basically gives you two UIs. Traditional interfaces are great for traditional computers, but to compete with the big dogs, which is, I think, what Canonical and GNOME (to a lesser extent) want to do, they need to create interfaces which can work on anything.
- slurry 12y ago
  What will happen to GNOME if it does not successfully compete with the big dogs? Nothing. It does not compete with the big dogs now, has never done so, and - whatever convergent multiplatforming it may do in the future - is unlikely ever to do so. And yet it is still a viable project. This isn't the beverage or toilet paper industry. Niche products - especially ones like GNOME that don't have to "sell" or turn a profit - have a demonstrated way of living on. There may be good arguments for what GNOME has been doing, but the need to compete (with largely imaginary competitors imho) is not one of them.
  - danford 12y ago
    >the need to compete (with largely imaginary competitors imho) is not one of them. But it is though. If this is your philosophy I would love to see some of your crappy projects. Believe it or not, when you design an interface you're competing with the other people who are doing the same thing. I'm sorry you dislike GNOME, but your comment adds absolutely nothing to the discussion. If I was going to make a search engine I would make it with google in mind. If I was going to make a social network I would make it with facebook in mind. I don't care what twisted way you want to frame your argument, it's incorrect. GNOME 3 and Unity do compete with Microsoft whether you their competition is a real threat or not. Do you not think Apple competes with Microsoft? Do you not think internet explorer competes with chrome?
    - 12y ago
Argorak 12y ago
Did I say that?

hippich 12y ago

If you do not change - some people will complain, if you do change - other people will complain. Some people will always complain. This is open source product and if enough designers/developers will feel it is going into wrong direction, I am pretty sure it will be forked. And for people who like gnome2 experience - there is mate desktop. So it looks like most cases are covered.

pessimizer 12y ago
>If you do not change - some people will complain, if you do change - other people will complain. Some people will always complain. This is a thought-terminating justification for anything.
- mwfunk 12y ago
  I don't think that's meant as a justification for anything, just a statement of fact. Open source projects are heavily dependent on electronic communication (mailing lists, forums, etc.) for everything from feature planning to user feedback, but what all of those mediums have in common is that people are 100x more likely to post that they hate than that they like something. So, it really is true that no matter what you do or don't do, seemingly everyone on the Internet is going to hate it, when in fact that's just a very vocal minority. Point being, even GNOME 3 (or Unity...) levels of vocal online user hate don't necessarily mean that a meaningful percentage of the user base actually dislikes the changes. Feedback should always be read and reflected on, just not followed slavishly. If you just try to avoid Internet hate from users, you'll never change anything, and even that philosophy will garner you a continuous stream of heated forum posts about how nothing ever changes. It's kind of like reading Yelp reviews. In the aggregate, they help some places stand out from the crowd, but they're still not any sort of objective judgement on the place being reviewed. You always have to think about where the reviewer is coming from and take that into account. For example, dumbasses who go to some incredibly popular and trendy restaraunt at 7:30pm on Friday without reservations, and then post negative reviews because they had to wait too long for a table. Well, duh. In the software world, the equivalent would be complaints about a piece of software not being just like X (where X could be a previous version, or some competitor), when in fact your entire goal is to create something unlike X. If someone wants X and you're making Y, then have to take "Y sucks because it's not X!" complaints with a massive grain of salt. It still doesn't mean you ignore those complaints (maybe Y was a bad idea?), but you wouldn't be doing anyone any favors by doing the most common Open Source thing, which would be to either say, "oh well, I guess we'll stop making Y and just make another X instead", or (even worse, and sadly even more common), "I know, we'll make everyone happy by making something that's both an X and a Y! We can just put a checkbox in the settings!"
  - pessimizer 12y ago
    I'm saying that when your arguments can be used to justify either imposing sharia law, pulling your child out of public school, or changing the body design of the next years 200cc Vespa - it's really just an argument for doing what you want when you want. Why the need to rationalize it? Why the need to insult the people who do object as anomalies of human behavior, an emergent result of complex constrained random interactions, or Haters? People who want to do, and can do, don't have to justify anything. If what you want is to do the right thing (rather than a more concrete goal) then instead of (pseudo)accepting objections to your decisions as inevitable and to be ignored, why not address them individually, and on their merits? Let's pretend that the world is complex, and there's something left for all of us to discover about human behavior and what's easier, harder, and more productive for people.

danford 12y ago

The GNOME Devs did the right thing though. They are open source so the community can fork anything they want and there are plenty of other really similar DEs. Ubuntu and GNOME can't compete with modern UIs without making something that's multi-platform oriented. I believe GNOME 3 and Unity actually have the right ideas when it comes to convergent interfaces, whereas Microsoft just basically gives you two UIs. Traditional interfaces are great for traditional computers, but to compete with the big dogs, which is, I think, what Canonical and GNOME (to a lesser extent) want to do, they need to create interfaces which can work on anything.

slurry 12y ago
What will happen to GNOME if it does not successfully compete with the big dogs? Nothing. It does not compete with the big dogs now, has never done so, and - whatever convergent multiplatforming it may do in the future - is unlikely ever to do so. And yet it is still a viable project. This isn't the beverage or toilet paper industry. Niche products - especially ones like GNOME that don't have to "sell" or turn a profit - have a demonstrated way of living on. There may be good arguments for what GNOME has been doing, but the need to compete (with largely imaginary competitors imho) is not one of them.
- danford 12y ago
  >the need to compete (with largely imaginary competitors imho) is not one of them. But it is though. If this is your philosophy I would love to see some of your crappy projects. Believe it or not, when you design an interface you're competing with the other people who are doing the same thing. I'm sorry you dislike GNOME, but your comment adds absolutely nothing to the discussion. If I was going to make a search engine I would make it with google in mind. If I was going to make a social network I would make it with facebook in mind. I don't care what twisted way you want to frame your argument, it's incorrect. GNOME 3 and Unity do compete with Microsoft whether you their competition is a real threat or not. Do you not think Apple competes with Microsoft? Do you not think internet explorer competes with chrome?
  - 12y ago

Argorak 12y ago

Did I say that?