It's 2014 and not 1999.
That clumsy bag of parts is the reason why the Linux desktop failed.
We're in a brave new Linux world where Red Hat now makes over a billion
dollars a year, powers the New York Stock Exchange and Google has two
Linux products Chrome OS and Android. Requirements have changed and we
have Wayland and systemd now as guiding examples of the way forward.
Linux projects that fail to consolidate their efforts and collaborate in
an organized way are now obstacles to progress slowing everyone down.
GNOME desperately needs a new better way of doing things or they risk
becoming irrelevant in the technology industry and community.
On Wed, 2014-02-05 at 14:36 -0500, Jasper St. Pierre wrote:
> Traditionally, GNOME shipped itself as a bag of parts that
> distributors would rearrange into whatever they wanted, and we were
> happy with this. You'd take a dash of gnome-panel, mix it with
> metacity or sawfish or i3wm, and then slap on some nautilus or
> gnome-commander.
>
> That's not how we can build a well-integrated, compelling OS. Mixing
> and matching components means that it's hard to test, and hard to
> define: all GNOME 2 was just some tarballs and some code.
>
>
> Projects like Cinnamon and MATE are happy to use our code (it's free
> software, after all), along with our infrastructure for building their
> own OS, so they don't have to re-translate the same strings and keep
> track of the same bugs, but those teams are focusing on building their
> own OS, not GNOME.
>
> The GNOME we're trying to build has its own vision, and it's trying to
> become its own well-defined product: The number-one free software
> operating system.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 2:26 PM, Alexander GS <alxgrtnstrngl gmail com>
> wrote:
> On Tue, 2014-02-04 at 13:09 +0000, Allan Day wrote:
>
> > Hi Alex,
> >
> > Thanks for reaching out with your ideas. I'm afraid that
> you're
> > catching us at a bad time - we are really close to UI freeze
> and a lot
> > of us are working flat out on that. I personally don't have
> much time
> > to spare on mailing lists right now. :)
> >
> > Can you explain what the GNOME 2 sub-project would actually
> look like?
> > It's hard to respond without knowing details about how it
> would
> > actually work. I understand that you are proposing to
> utilise some
> > GNOME 3 modules, but how would it differ? Would it have a
> 3.x
> > gnome-control-center? Would it have a shell? If not, which
> pieces
> > would you use instead? Would you expect the GNOME project to
> make
> > regular GNOME 2 releases alongside GNOME ones? Would we work
> to ensure
> > we produce quality GNOME 2 releases as well as GNOME 3
> releases? How
> > would we market these two experiences? What would we
> recommend to
> > distributions?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Allan
>
>
> After some deep reflection and considerations I finally got
> the root of
> my frustration with the GNOME project. In reality I don't
> have anything
> against GNOME 3. It's that GNOME has been slow to adapt to
> the changes
> in the GNOME ecosystem. The central problem is the idea of
> having a
> single dedicated desktop product.
>
> That's why I propose the GNOME Meta-Desktop. Posted below is
> the Problem
> statement of this proposal as a preview. I've posted the full
> proposal
> to the wiki.gnome.org so you can comment on points directly.
>
> -----------------------
>
> GNOME Meta-Desktop
>
> Problem
>
> For some time now, Linux has been evolving beyond the idea of
> the
> "single" desktop platform. This is not Windows where each
> platform is
> bolted down to a single desktop interface design.
> Unfortunately projects
> like GNOME have been slow to adapt. GNOME's focus on a single
> dedicated
> desktop interface design has caused the Linux desktop space to
> fragment
> causing divisions and frictions between the various
> communities. This
> has also deprived commercial Linux platforms the ability to
> shape
> desktops that fit strict requirements demanded by their target
> markets.
>
> Currently and unofficially GNOME is evolving into a
> meta-desktop with
> GNOME Shell, Cinnamon and MATE the resultant outputs of this
> evolution.
> This brings along with it several problems such as
> fragmentation and
> redundancies. The GNOME meta-desktop needs to be standardized,
> needs
> community collaboration and needs GNOME in-house desktop
> products to
> drive it forward.
>
> ------------------------
>
> https://wiki.gnome.org/AlexGS/GnomeMetaDesktop
>
> Thank you for your time and attention.
>
> _______________________________________________
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> desktop-devel-list gnome org
> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
>
>
>
>
> --
> Jasper
>
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