My request to ubuntu developer team

Liam Proven lproven at gmail.com
Wed Nov 16 14:12:24 UTC 2011


On 16 November 2011 13:12, Amedee Van Gasse <amedee-ubuntu at amedee.be> wrote:
> On Wed, November 16, 2011 02:54, Liam Proven wrote:
>
>> *But* what has happened is that some volunteers forked GNOME 2.32, the
>> last version before GNOME 3. It's now called Mate:
>> https://github.com/Perberos/Mate-Desktop-Environment
>>
>> Because the name has changed, the package names have changed. So, in
>> theory, you can have Mate and GNOME  3 installed at once.
>>
>> And there is a PPA for Mate:
>> https://launchpad.net/~amanas/+archive/mate-desktop
>>
>> So in theory you could install Mate, remove GNOME 3 and Unity and have
>> a modern Ubuntu with the classic-GNOME-style desktop.
>>
>> And who knows, maybe someone will do a remix that includes this?
>>
>> It's not a trivial task, though. And it is too soon to say if the Mate
>> project will be a success, attracte more volunteer developers and
>> continue to get updated.
>
> Mate doesn't have a lot of activity. I'm afraid that it's a stillborn child.

I suspect you are right. Trinity - the fork of KDE3 that came out
after KDE 4 - also struggled on for a short distance and then largely
died, in just the same way.

It would be better, I think, in both cases, to start over and
re-implement a "classic" style desktop on top of the newer versions of
the libraries and applets/accessories. But that is very obviously an
epic task.

It is not as apparent at first, but forking an existing desktop and
then maintaining and updating it is /also/ an epic task and needs a
lot of effort - and therefore probably a lot of people. I don't think
that a handful of people could do it.


-- 
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
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