Reasonable at the surface
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| r_a_trip Aug 12, 2011 4:02 AM EDT |
There is a hidden problem though. What about power users, who are pretty technologically adept, but are not coders? How is this group supposed to live in the past? I don't see it. It must be nice to be able to cobble up your own setup and be able to modify it code wise to keep it all running. However, that is only feasible for coders. As a non-coding power user, one has no recourse but to follow developments as they happen. Unmaintained code only keeps working for so long and running an EOL Distro isn't an option. So where is that group of power users supposed to go? We can't stay on the previous iterations of the desktop environments. They are still alive, but the maintainers already have their hands on the lifesupport plug. Plus the Distro's are dropping these environments like flies. We could go with the flow and enter the beautiful world of Teletuby appliance interfaces and start pining for the days that dual core processors actually made sense, but that proposition isn't attractive either. If this is the future, they can keep it. Time to roll up my sleeves and seriously go prospect the lesser known alternatives and find out which project I'm going to trust with my desktop needs. Oh well, well needed training for my rusty distro hopping muscles. |
| KernelShepard Aug 12, 2011 8:23 AM EDT |
@r_a_trip: In theory, unmaintained code keeps working as well as it did the day the developers stopped working on it for an eternity. Of course, that's not quite how it works in the real world, but it still mostly holds true unless significant changes are made to the underlying architectures. Since most KDE apps don't depend on anything outside the KDE universe (except libc and the kernel which should continue to provide the same interfaces), they should continue to work for a very long time. You won't see many (if any) bug fixes, but that is a choice you have to make. One of Bradley Kuhn's statements really hit home for me which is that so many developers who used to be Free Software contributors seem to be switching to MacOS X, I see it everywhere at Free Software conferences and from my own social network (I know ~2 dozen developers at Mozilla, for instance, who, 10 years ago were major Linux heads, now all but one run MacOS and swear by it). As someone who has recently been forced into using MacOS X, I can tell you I'd have a much easier time switching full-time to it rather than Windows and the more I use it, the more I'm beginning to like it (I've never owned an Apple computer since the Apple //c and the most recent Mac OS I'd really used until a few months ago was Mac Classic). I haven't used GNOME 3 yet, so I can't really compare, but if Mr. Kuhn's assessment is right, that UX's like GNOME 3's Shell are targeted at trying to keep the interest of many developers that would otherwise switch away from Linux to MacOS X, then it seems important to have. |
| jdixon Aug 12, 2011 9:18 AM EDT |
> So where is that group of power users supposed to go? We can't stay on the previous iterations of the desktop environments... You do realize that Slackware 8 is still receiving security updates, don't you? And CentOS will receive updates as long as Red Hat keeps supporting the relevant version of RHEL. There are distro's which give you long term support. There's little need to upgrade for the sake of upgrading. |
| r_a_trip Aug 12, 2011 10:12 AM EDT |
In theory snip real world That right there is the problem. In theory, I could just keep using the setup up I have right now until the end of the universe. In practise my hardware will probably break down sometime sooner than later, my use patterns might change so that I need additional software that is only available on newer environments, external sources of information may change formats so my old software won't display them anymore. Standing still in a digital world is an option, just as chopping of your own head is always an option. It's just that it is a least attractive option. I haven't used GNOME 3 yet, so I can't really compare, but if Mr. Kuhn's assessment is right, that UX's like GNOME 3's Shell are targeted at trying to keep the interest of many developers that would otherwise switch away from Linux to MacOS X, then it seems important to have. As for developers defecting to proprietary software... I always thought usage of FOSS was predicate on principle, not "Ooh, shiny". If that isn't the case, as illustrated by the rampant use of shiny subjugation-ware, why even bother. If the people writing the stuff don't believe in the principles behind the license, why should users even care? Dog fooding seems to be dead. The strange thing is that a great number of big name developers have blasted Gnome 3 and the old guard of Gnome 2.x users don't seem to be enamored with it either. I've tentatively played a few minutes around in Gnome Shell and that experience was enough to not want to explore it any further. The same with Unity. I didn't see anything that enticed me to stay longer and explore more. Reasonably looking dumb-ware is the best description that pops into my head. (Yes, reasonably looking, it didn't blow me away as the first Aqua screenshots when they appeared.) |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 12, 2011 3:05 PM EDT |
I'm giving GNOME 3 a good year to ripen before I bite into it. Being an early adopter can be painful. There are plenty of people who must have the latest, and I'm happy for them to work out the bugs for me. |
| JaseP Aug 12, 2011 5:08 PM EDT |
I'm giving it longer than a year. I've got 12+ machines at home, & they're not configured for network installs... By the time I'm ready, it'll either suit my needs, or all the defectors will have another WM/DE that does. |
| skelband Aug 12, 2011 6:12 PM EDT |
Give it 6 months at the outset, and there will be either a Gnome 2-style shell alternative to Gnome 3 Shell or a fork of Gnome. I'm thinking the first option because of the effort involved in the second. |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 12, 2011 8:56 PM EDT |
While we definitely need people willing to test the latest software and possibly be terribly inconvenienced by same (in return for new features), there seems to be no shortage of such users, so those of us who wish to hang back can do so without guilt. |
| tracyanne Aug 12, 2011 11:52 PM EDT |
Quoting:there will be either a Gnome 2-style shell alternative to Gnome 3 Shell I can probably live with that. |
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