Too pacifying for me.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| r_a_trip Sep 09, 2011 5:18 AM EDT |
I can on some level understand the "can't we all get along" line of thought. Yet, if we are supposed to be nice little minions, falling in line and not rocking the boat, how does a project know they went of their rocker? The beating of the dead horse will subside in a few months, don't worry. The Gnome 3 toting Distro's will notice that their user numbers have declined. The Gnome project will eventually try to salvage some of their image by reintroducing some distractions in their distraction free desktop. Most dissatisfied people, who do not think that Gnome 3 is manna from heaven and above questioning, will just move on to something else and think looooong and hard about ever returning to Gnome. Ubuntu went through the same process with the PR handling of their controversial changes in e.g. buttons and the trainwreck that is Unity on the desktop. We still see articles on Ubuntu posted, but the funny thing is that on the mainstream Linux sites these articles almost go with out any comments. Seems like people moved on and stopped being buzzed over Ubuntu. The sad part about all this is that mere users are just unwanted collateral in this brave new world of vision in FOSS. As usual, we non-coders are holding the short end of the stick. Despite the theoretical safe guards built into the licensing, we still only get the take-it-or-leave-it option. In that regard, FOSS is no better than proprietary software. If your measely, real life needs don't coincide with the use cases of the mythical average user, you are just an unneeded, toxic mal-content. We "don't get get to second guess" - Ubuntu. We "users are not needed" - KDE. We "won't get changes that compromise Gnome's vision" - Gnome. FOSS is still better than CSS when it does what you need. It is resilient software and we can pass it around without fear of the copyright hounds. When it comes to the warm fuzzies over being part of the community, it is increasingly becoming clear that mere mortal users are not part of that equation. This realization is making my inner idealist cringe and shrink, but my inner cynic is feeling more and more comfortable with treating FOSS as any other piece of product. Does it do what I need? Yes. Perfect! No? Drop it and never take a second look. The silver lining of this is that I've stopped evangelizing. At least I'm not annoying people over their OS choice anymore. Everybody should be free to choose their masters. |
| mbaehrlxer Sep 09, 2011 6:00 AM EDT |
Quoting:Yet, if we are supposed to be nice little minions, falling in line and not rocking the boat, how does a project know they went of their rocker? i agree, i bit of complaint is necessary to tell the developers that they misjudged the situation. i have not tried gnome 3 yet, so i can't say anything about that, but i have been bitten by kde4 where kpresenter is STILL NOT able to handle presentations made with the older version. another think that just bit me is transmissions removal of the "proxy for tracker requests" feature. the developers claimed that noone used that. they were clearly wrong as can be seen in the responses to the respective bugs. but that case highlights another problem: what good is complaining if developers don't listen? in the transmission case it would have been as simple as putting the proxy feature back in. i'll have to vote with my feet :-( greetings, eMBee. |
| cabreh Sep 09, 2011 7:56 AM EDT |
I am getting fed up with the many articles coming out now saying you shouldn't complain when a product you use is made useless by the developers. Coca-Cola is a perfect example of why you don't want to follow their ways. It was due to the customers endlessly complaining about the "New Coke" that got the result of "Coke Classic" being brought back. Then going on to basically eliminate the "New Coke". I was one of the unhappy Coke customers back then. After all if I had wanted Pepsi I would have just bought it from them. Customer (User) complaining is what may bring back a usable work environment to Gnome 3. I wont hold my breathe due to the attitude of the developers who aren't getting payment from their users. But, if they think users don't matter they don't know much beyond programming. |
| lcafiero Sep 09, 2011 8:46 AM EDT |
cabreh wrote:I am getting fed up with the many articles coming out now saying you shouldn't complain when a product you use is made useless by the developers. Sorry to hear it, but I didn't say you shouldn't complain. What I said was that whenever someone brings up GNOME 3 or KDE, the same complaints come up, repeated ad nauseum, especially here in the LXer.com forums. GNOME 3 sucks -- we get it. KDE 4.x will never reach the glorious heights of KDE 3.5 -- understood. My point is that you should do something about it or move on to some other desktop or window manager (or program) that suits you better. Also, on the point above made by mbaehrlxer: Programmers who don't listen to users do this at their own peril, and there's a Darwinian aspect to this. Eventually, if developers choose to ignore users, their programs run the risk of atrophy and eventual extinction. This is why I think Aaron Seigo deserves kudos for his blog item, and I hope he keeps up the updates. My hope is that it slaps some sense into others (he says, looking at GNOME). (Also, mbaehrlxer, have you tried opening the Kpresenter file in Impress? I've had good luck going from Impress to Kpresenter, but I've never done it the other way around. It might be worth a shot. Point here is that if one thing doesn't work, there's always an alternative.) r_a_trip wrote:I can on some level understand the "can't we all get along" line of thought. Yet, if we are supposed to be nice little minions, falling in line and not rocking the boat, how does a project know they went of their rocker? Again, I didn't say we should all get along, nor should we be nice little minions, not rocking the boat. We should speak our minds, and many of us do, but we shouldn't have a Pavlovian response of "GNOME sucks!" every time someone mentions GNOME -- which happens a lot here and elsewhere -- or "KDE 3.5 rules!" every time someone talks about KDE 4.x. r_a_trip wrote:Despite the theoretical safe guards built into the licensing, we still only get the take-it-or-leave-it option. I respectfully disagree (though i don't see how licensing enters into this). As users, we don't have to take it or leave it because there are a lot of options available to us. If you honestly think you "don't get to second guess Ubuntu," then don't use it (I say this as the man whose statue graces the lobby of the Ubuntu Second Guessers Hall of Fame). Your vision doesn't fit with GNOME's or you feel you're not needed by KDE? Go elsewhere, to Xfce, LXDE, Enlightenment or other desktop environment/window manager of your liking. I'm not looking for a big "Kumbaya" where we all hold hand and sing in harmony. I'm pointing out to those stuck in the rut of "$DESKTOP/$PROGRAM has done me wrong" to get out of the rut and either work to fix it or use something else. |
| dinotrac Sep 09, 2011 8:56 AM EDT |
@Larry - here's what I posted on your site: Agree with hue and cry up to a point, but… Smug put-downs of “wailing and gnashing of teeth” and stern-faced Puritan commandments to go fix it thy own self miss the mark badly on a couple of counts. First, most of it can’t fix it ourselves. Most GNOME or KDE developers can’t perform a coronary bypass or change the timing belt on a car. Most computer users can’t re-spin fedora, or fork a major desktop. We (and they) are at the mercy of those who can. Second, that hue and cry is a useful thing. It should be painful for developers to royally screw up widely used and relied upon software. It should be painful enough to soak through those thick little noggins and plant the thought, “Gee. Maybe we could have done this better.” The issue is trust as much as it is technology. If we are going to entrust the systems used to make our daily bread (like mine), we want to know that the people who make the software we need take that responsibility seriously. Because trust is harder to recognize and quantify than a software feature list or bug count, it takes longer to win back. I was heartened by Aaron’s post. It shows a budding maturity that has been missing from many KDE team communications. For the first time, I see signs that Aaron may be trustworthy, and, by extension, the KDE team. The software seems to have improved mightily since the bad old days of 4.0, and, were it not for the trust issue, merit a good tire-kicking. I’ve grown comfortable with XFCE since leaving KDE behind, but, after using KDE for more than a decade, I can’t quite shake the sense of being somehow disloyal. It would be nice to know that the developers understand that kind of thing. |
| fewt Sep 09, 2011 9:06 AM EDT |
If you don't like GNOME 3 use a GNOME 2 or XFCE (or other desktop) distribution until GNOME 3 reaches the maturity level of GNOME 2. We have no plans to go to GNOME 3 in the immediate future at Fuduntu, so why not just come over to our distro while the dust settles? |
| lcafiero Sep 09, 2011 9:40 AM EDT |
Thanks, dinotrac, I can always depend on you for civil discourse :-) I've responded to your comment on my blog, and while I have to laugh about "me" and "Puritan" appearing in the same sentence, I did not mean to pontificate or put down others smugly, as you suggest (though sometimes the high horse is irresistable). I do apologize if did act in this way, but I didn't mean to. I think KDE "got it" when the put out an arguably unfinished 4.0, and scrambled to right their ship, which I believe they have. It remains to be seen whether GNOME follows suit, and as I said before (and I'll shut up about it, in order to heed my own words), I hope they will. @fewt -- Good point, insofar as we all have options. If Fuduntu works for you, go for it. |
| dinotrac Sep 09, 2011 9:52 AM EDT |
@larry -- Puritans get a bad rap. How uptight can you be if you pull up your roots, cross the ocean in a little wooden shiplet, then set up your lives in a wilderness thousands of miles away from anything you've knows as civilization? OK, that witch-stoning thing was not so good, but still... |
| r_a_trip Sep 09, 2011 11:03 AM EDT |
As users, we don't have to take it or leave it because there are a lot of options available to us. If you honestly think you "don't get to second guess Ubuntu," then don't use it (I say this as the man whose statue graces the lobby of the Ubuntu Second Guessers Hall of Fame). Your vision doesn't fit with GNOME's or you feel you're not needed by KDE? Go elsewhere, to Xfce, LXDE, Enlightenment or other desktop environment/window manager of your liking. How is the above not take it or leave it? You just said our only recourse is leaving it. Since most users are non-coders (strange how not everybody can be a programmer, isn't it?), there is no way to fix this, except forgoing what we do now in life and become coders. So the only realistic option left is leaving it. The big problem I have with the notion that we just need to constantly move to what works for us (or abandon what doesn't anymore), is that we users become driftwood floating in front of the wave of projects who suddenly develop vision. I could and probably will move to XFCE, but what happens if the XFCE team decides to get vision in a couple of years. What if they come to the conclusion that an ATM style interface is what anybody will ever need in life? Pure fiction of course, but I think it illustrates my point. If loved projects are free to self destruct without accountability and criticism, where does that leave us in the grand scheme of things? If end users can't rely on projects to continually make dependable software, that we can expect major breakage every new major cycle, that it takes years for new software to mature to a point of usability, why should we even be using FOSS? The proprietary alternatives look desirably old and staid in comparison (even including Vista). Darwin will be at work here one way or another, but it won't do any good to the selfdestructing projects or the burned users. All I see is unnecessary pain on both sides. |
| lcafiero Sep 09, 2011 12:53 PM EDT |
@dinotrac: Yep, the witch-stoning thing was not good. :-)r_a_trip wrote:How is the above not take it or leave it? You just said our only recourse is leaving it. Allow me to play the semantics card: "It" is a singluar pronoun, with the subtext that one is offered only one choice. "Take it or leave it," then, means you have one choice to take or to leave. My point is that if A offends or is wrong, go to B, or C or D . . . . Or did you mean something else? I'm not being snarky here: I'm trying to be clear, which apparently I wasn't -- or at least not as much as I would have liked -- in the blog item and subsequent comments above. |
| jdixon Sep 09, 2011 12:54 PM EDT |
> If end users can't rely on projects to continually make dependable software, that we can expect major breakage every new major cycle, that it takes years for new software to mature to a point of usability, why should we even be using FOSS? Because FOSS at least allows for the possibility that the old version can be maintained until the new version is ready? With commercial software the company can cut off the old version completely. |
| r_a_trip Sep 09, 2011 2:33 PM EDT |
with the subtext that one is offered only one choice Ah I see. You are looking at the whole of FOSS. I'm looking at the DE's one at a time. Gnome 3 is a take it or leave it proposition, since the developers have clearly stated that their vision is more important than their users. So yes, luckily we have a choice of a few other graphical environments, but I wouldn't describe that as a plus for major projects that abandon their users for self gratification. |
| r_a_trip Sep 09, 2011 2:40 PM EDT |
Because FOSS at least allows for the possibility that the old version can be maintained until the new version is ready? And how many times does this happen in real life? Who is doing the maintaining and is the project viable for a longer time or even as an indefinite replacement for it's successor, might the successor become ready but still not what one wants? I'm getting at the point in which idealistic, rose colored views of FOSS are hard to maintain. At the moment I still deem the licensing better than the CSS alternatives for a mere end user, but the contempt for mortal humans coming from both FOSS and CSS aren't too far apart right now. |
| fewt Sep 09, 2011 2:46 PM EDT |
Quoting:And how many times does this happen in real life? Who is doing the maintaining and is the project viable for a longer time or even as an indefinite replacement for it's successor, might the successor become ready but still not what one wants? RedHat will support GNOME 2 in RHEL 6 which will funnel down to CentOS and Scientific Linux as well. They have very long term support models. |
| Fettoosh Sep 09, 2011 3:37 PM EDT |
@r_a_trip, Why don't you take the rest of the day off! and start thinking about how to enjoy the weekend. |
| Steven_Rosenber Sep 09, 2011 4:07 PM EDT |
CSS??? |
| jdixon Sep 09, 2011 4:12 PM EDT |
> And how many times does this happen in real life? I don't really know. I suspect a nice undergraduate or graduate level study of the field would be required to find out for sure. But as the Trinity desktop shows, the possibility does exist. > ...but the contempt for mortal humans coming from both FOSS and CSS aren't too far apart right now. I have trouble arguing with that, unfortunately. :( > CSS??? Closed Source Software, I assume. |
| Steven_Rosenber Sep 09, 2011 7:22 PM EDT |
I've gotten very comfortable with Debian Stable, and I should be able to "enjoy" GNOME 2 until early 2013 and even 2014 (with Squeeze as Old Stable) if I'm really feeling clingy. And like @fewt said, there's always CentOS/Scientific Linux 6.x ... |
| tracyanne Sep 09, 2011 7:46 PM EDT |
Quoting:I'm getting at the point in which idealistic, rose colored views of FOSS are hard to maintain. It depends on the size of the project and it's maturity, I think. For example the KDE and GNOME devs won't listen to anyoe who doesn't in some way already contribute code, while on the other hand all of the proposed changes and features I proposed to a small project.. PLUG, the FOSS version of Fender's FUSE application for their Mustang Amplifiers... were implemented almost immediately, and rolled into Version 1.0.0, thereby giving the FOSS version feature compatibility with FUSE, plus features that are unlikely to ever be implemented in FUSE, but which make the application way more useful and flixible. |
| Steven_Rosenber Sep 09, 2011 8:00 PM EDT |
I'm all-analog when it comes to the electric guitar. Nothing past the 1980s for me. |
| tracyanne Sep 09, 2011 9:56 PM EDT |
Friend of mine Guitar player and Guitar builder won't use anything except Valve Amplifiers. |
| r_a_trip Sep 10, 2011 7:42 AM EDT |
@fewt: I'm having a great weekend sofar, but thanks for the suggestion. CSS = Closed Source Software. I'm a bit cooled down now. Of course there are a lot of very well managed projects, large and small, who do a wonderful job of pushing the envelope without going whacky. It's just very frustrating to see flagship projects derail and have the developers blind and deaf to their predicament. It is damaging to the project, it is disruptive for the current users and plain bad pr for potential new ones. |
| fewt Sep 10, 2011 8:02 AM EDT |
Quoting:@fewt: I'm having a great weekend sofar, but thanks for the suggestion. Don't you mean @Fettoosh? ;) |
| tuxchick Sep 10, 2011 11:54 AM EDT |
r_a_trip, you're right on. No need to apologize. |
| r_a_trip Sep 10, 2011 1:15 PM EDT |
Sorry, my bad. That's what I get with typing on a mobile phone while walking. |
| dinotrac Sep 10, 2011 2:40 PM EDT |
@r_a : Better than driving. |
| r_a_trip Sep 10, 2011 3:01 PM EDT |
True, but I follow a strict no phone while driving policy. I intend to grow very old :-) |
| Fettoosh Sep 10, 2011 3:01 PM EDT |
Quoting:CSS = Closed Source Software I would rather call them PSS because that is what they are :-). (Proprietary Source Software). |
| r_a_trip Sep 10, 2011 4:08 PM EDT |
Or MPS. My Precioussssssssss Software. |
| Steven_Rosenber Sep 11, 2011 1:22 AM EDT |
Tube amps do sound better ... |
| tracyanne Sep 11, 2011 2:03 AM EDT |
Well he does get a great sound. The tube amp plus his fan fretted guitar.. heaven. |
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