Default Desktop Experience for 11.04

[Clint Byrum]

Excerpts from Luke Faraone's message of Thu Apr 21 07:51:55 -0700 2011:
> Unless we have a very good reason (which so far has yet to be presented,
> beyond "its better UX"), we should maintain support for applications
> using the (still supported in Gtk2!) API.
> 

Does anybody actually *like* status icons?

I *despise* them. The fact that there are less on my natty desktop is
something that has made me very happy. I put up with Skype's icon and
proprietary ways because their service and app are amazing. If we missed
any other amazing apps for whitelist, thats a worthy SRU I think.

Do we have specific application examples that are broken now? Have any
of us tried to make a patch to stuff them into an existing indicator if
available, and sent it upstream? How hard is this process?

I don't think its all that arrogant to say "these screw up the UX,
so we have disabled them. We're here to help you get that fixed."

How about an apport hook during oneiric alpha to file a bug if an
un-whitelisted program tries to use GtkStatusIcon? Rather than silently
failing, it can say "Your program tried to fill your top bar with annoying
blinkenlights, do you want to file a bug about that?"

I agree that the position we're in now does not win us a ton of friends
in the FOSS world. However, we've consistently won the hearts and minds
of users because of UX centric decisions. As the form factors and user
expectations change and evolve, I think its ok to say "we're going this
direction, we want you here too but we can't wait forever!"