Spatial mess prevention

[andvaranaut]

I know it has now been discussed in length both in this thread and in
the bug report, but as UDU is coming around the corner and (I'd think)
issues like this one will probably be discussed, I'm tossing in my two
cents.

To summarize, I think ubuntu-spatial should *really* have been left for
Breezy. The change was too controversial (and untested) to be introduced
when in a feature freeze. I don't see the ubuntu-spatial special merits
(I'd be glad to be pointed to them); I think the change introduces a
dangerous amount of inconsistencies in the desktop experience, and
(considering the time it took Koke to come up with a GUI for the
change) should _at least_ have had a GUI option for unsetting it. 

I respect and admire the amount of work Mark and the rest of Ubuntu
team have put in Ubuntu. I absolutely love Ubuntu and actively endorse
its use. But I personally think this change has not been tested and
discussed enough. I have not seen any discussion among the Ubuntu core
developers leading to the introduction of Ubuntu-spatial (again I'd
love to be corrected); rather, it seems to have been imposed by the
sabd in a way to -actively avoid it being discussed-. I suppose I'm
again mistaken, but that is the picture I get. 

And saying "sorry this change has just slipped under the radar until
now, live with it" does not cut it, IMHO. Mark can of course do
whatever he pleases, but by introducing this change in the feature
freeze and a few days from the release he has refused to play by the
rules, shunned any serious discussion and testing by the "unstable"
hoary people, seriously affected the documentation efforts, introduced
a source of potential confusion among end users and left various
glaring inconsistencies in the desktop. Not pretty, specially since all
of this might have been avoided in a friendly way by just leaving the
change for Breezy. It'd have been 6 months to smooth out the edges.

I'd written a much longer post discussing ubuntu-spatial
inconsistencies and slight hindering of productivity, but I think it
will not add much to the discussion. If any of you is really interested
I can post it up...

Keep up the good work
andvaranaut


-- 
andvaranaut