Re: Underlying DE for the Fedora Workstation product
- From: Alexander GS <alxgrtnstrngl gmail com>
- To: "Jasper St. Pierre" <jstpierre mecheye net>
- Cc: desktop-devel-list <desktop-devel-list gnome org>
- Subject: Re: Underlying DE for the Fedora Workstation product
- Date: Wed, 05 Feb 2014 16:09:04 -0500
We're still a fairly small company operating on tight margins.
That's a problem I'm attempting to address by suggesting bringing back a
modern but conservative and business friendly GNOME 2.
On Wed, 2014-02-05 at 15:40 -0500, Jasper St. Pierre wrote:
(Red Hat does not make over a billion dollars a year. The billion
dollars was profits, not revenue. We're still a fairly small company
operating on tight margins)
I agree that the "clumsy bag of parts" model is not a good one. That's
why we changed it for GNOME3, in that we're trying to build and ship
an integrated, tested OS instead of a bunch of tarballs.
On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 3:03 PM, Alexander GS <alxgrtnstrngl gmail com>
wrote:
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.
>
> _______________________________________________
> desktop-devel-list mailing list
> desktop-devel-list gnome org
>
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
>
>
>
>
> --
> Jasper
>
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--
Jasper
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