Transforming GNOME Into A Linux-Only Project?

Wow.

Is there anybody left in the free software world (heck -- is there a free software world left?) with a clue as to what it's all about?

Seems like it's time for the GNOME and KDE folks to get together for a lovefest:

KDE: You rock! GNOME: No, you rock! KDE: Face it, we both rock! GNOME: Can't argue with you there. KDE: And then ,there's our commitment to our wonderful users. (pause) GNOME: Whoa! You had me going for a minute there. You kept a straight face almost all the way through.

They eye each other, then break out laughing.

And laughing.

And laughing.

The landscape is changing... That's for sure. And you're right, there is no commitment towards the user's wants or desires. I think the lightweight WM/DEs will be the real winners here. Most of them will retain their user-up approach to the project's management, and not make design changes that limit choices. I, for one, don't like the new Gnome shell or Unity interfaces. They're too simplistic and limiting. The designers just don't get it that people want to MULTI-TASK. I don't even really use the Gnome panel. I just have it as a hideable fallback. I mostly use Cairo-dock with Compiz for managing my desktop. I don't even have Nautilus managing the desktop (IE: I don't allow it to draw icons).

I think it's way too early to pronounce GNOME 3 a success or failure. But the idea that GNOME would abandon compatibility with BSD and focus exclusively on Linux - that is an idea I don't like at all.

I think it's realistic to put the effort where it does the most good. If 98% of their users are on linux, it doesn't make a lot of sense to double or treble their effort for the other 2%.

Like the man said, it's open source and anyone is welcome to port it to any platform they wish - but focusing on the workarounds needed for the 2% shouldn't necessarily be the main pursuit of the gnome developers - let the porters for those platforms do that work.

@herzeleid --

Can you hear my teeth grinding?

Consider all of the 98% of users use Windows, 98% of users use IE, etc, that we free software folks have had to endure over the years, we are the last ones who should be exhibiting this kind of short-sighted logic.

@herzeleid: If "workarounds" are getting so much focus, what is being worked around? Issues in the OS? Then the OS should get the energy for fixes.

Are there any desktops/GUI's that restrict themselves to POSIX calls and X11 drawing? GNOME 3 relies on Cairo for its GUI abstraction. Yay.

@dino - I hardly think it short sighted to focus on improving the prospects for the linux desktop. It would be unproductive to fritter away core developer time on non-linux workarounds which stall out the creative process. Since we're already in the minority, shouldn't helping ourselves be a much higher priority than helping microsoft?

It's free and open source software. The code is available, and we don't sue anyone for looking at it. Whoever wants to port it to other OSes is free to do so. I think that is a highly charitable position.

@gus3 - is it really productive for the gnome developers to spend their time and energy working not on gnome itself but on non-linux OSes so that gnome features will work as well on them as they do on linux? Seriously? What's wrong with them focusing on making the linux desktop experience better?

For those who want the least common denominator, there are other choices.

Don't such arguments make a rather questionable assumption -- namely, that the BSD guys, et al, are a drain on Linux development, in the first place?

I'm not using BSD, myself, but I'm pretty sure that these "outliers" contribute well out of proportion to their numbers (and I don't mean just the pressure to use good, robust, cross-platform compatible coding discipline).

And as Dinotrack mentioned, do we really want to get into that mind-set, anyways? How about we leave that particular brand of self-centeredness and tunnel-vision to the Microsofts and Oracles of the world.

I don't follow the Xfce development team, but it's pretty small, and an infusion of developers and active, bug-filing users couldn't hurt.

When it comes to BSDs, it's not like you just grab the upstream tarball of GNOME, build a binary and drop it into the repo. There's quite a bit of development work needed to get things functioning in the various BSD environments.

I've used GNOME in both FreeBSD and OpenBSD, and there are dedicated developers in both projects that do a lot of work to make sure GNOME runs as well as it can.

Did I mention that GNOME is extremely fast in both OSes? You don't get everything, but I've seen in GhostBSD (a FreeBSD live disc with GNOME) that they have some form of NetworkManager-like utility, which could be what the FreeBSD GNOME team has been working on (or hoping to work on) for years now.

Patrick V. didn't drop GNOME from Slackware because packaging it was easy (and further props go to the various GNOME-for-Slackware projects that allow Slackware users to install GNOME if they wish).

I'm sticking with Debian Squeeze, so I'll have GNOME 2.30 (version ??) for a very long time if I wish.

Gosh, if the gnome folks would just open source their software. It's too bad they are so greedy. They should pay attention to Apple and Microsoft and .. oh, I guess I got confused.

So what's the problem?