Beautiful awesomeness ---stupidity?---

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 7 March 2010 19:10, Rick Spencer <rick.spencer at canonical.com> wrote:
> While I look forward to your continued contributions and support of
> Ubuntu, note that using the word "stupidity" to describe the
> contributions of people who dedicate so much effort and heart and soul
> to Ubuntu is not appropriate or acceptable on this list.
>
> In terms of the feedback that you requested for your communication
> style, I can say that when I hear someone use a word like "stupidity" in
> a public list or other forum, I assume the person fears change, or
> worse, is simply a troll. You would have made your point more
> effectively without insulting the contributions of others.
>
> Cheers, Rick

You're right, of course, and I apologize. But it seems extremely unwise
to me, to upset a large portion of the community just before the release
of the most important Ubuntu ever. It seems to me, that such a radical
change would warrant some prior discussons and explanations.

But maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps new users coming from Windows won't
notice the difference, or be tricked into thinking Ubuntu requires you to
learn everything from scratch. Perhaps I'm overestimating the value of
making new users feel comfortable. And after all, it's not that difficult to
tell new users to simply change theme and then press alt+f2 and paste
gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout \
--type string "menu:minimize,maximize,close".

But why should this be necessary? What's so important about moving
the buttons to the left, that people should have to retrain their muscles
in order to get comfortable with Ubuntu? Are these changes written in
stone, so they will persist no matter what the users think, or is it possible
that they'll be reverted? How do we explain this in our marketing brochures,
and when will it be safe to upgrade manuals, screenshots, screencasts,
etc?

Jo-Erlend