A task-centric desktop...

[Liam Proven]

On 21 November 2011 12:58, vladinator at gmail.com <vladinator at gmail.com> wrote:
> Paying attention to, and not being dismissive of, the needs and feedback of
> the community is the most important part of _any_ Distro. You either get
> that, or you quickly plummet from your position of prominence. Which is
> exactly what we are now seeing.

Please *top* quote on the list.

I don't think Ubuntu /is/ being unresponsive.

Firstly, I think a lot of people are happily using Unity and not
complaining. It's the ones who are whinging who are shouting and being
noticeable. Those using it are not shouting about it.

Secondly, and this is the thing EVERYONE seems to be missing:

UBUNTU *HAD* TO CHANGE THE DESKTOP.

It had NO CHOICE.

Firstly, GNOME 2 is dead. Gone. Fuggedaboutdit. It is no more. It has
ceased to be. That is nothing to do with Ubuntu or Canonical; blame
the GNOME Project.

So Ubuntu /had/ to change to a new desktop.

Secondly, *why* did GNOME die? Well, in part, because Microsoft is
threatening it. You may not realise how much GNOME steals from the
Microsoft Windows desktop - as does KDE, as does Xfce, as does LXDE -
but it is a /lot./ Compared to the non-Windows-influenced desktops
(like ROX Desktop or GNUstep, which you may never have seen because no
distro uses them by default), *anything* with a taskbar and a
hierarchical launch menu is a *direct ripoff* of Windows and all that
design is patented. Microsoft has patents over the Windows desktop
design and GNOME & KDE infringes some 235 of those patents.

So the smart Linux vendors have 2 choices:

[1] Sign a pact with Microsoft to share software patents and not get
sued - e.g. SUSE, Xandros
[2] Or don't sign and change to a non-Windows-like desktop, ASAP -
e.g. Ubuntu, Fedora

It was not a matter of choice. It was not a matter of listening to
users or not. It is a matter of trying to get out of a software patent
trap PDQ.

GNOME 3 does something different, unlike anything else. I don't like
it much myself but it works. I can use it if I must.

Unity is more pleasant by far, but it achieves that by being very like
Mac OS X, from another litigious company with lots of patents: Apple.
I am not sure that is the best plan, but for now, I like the result.

But the Linux companies are backed into a corner, and the options are,
get into bed with Microsoft or change to a non-Windows-like desktop
without a taskbar and without a hierarchical app menu.

And note that these are the 2 characteristics shared by GNOME 3 and Unity.

There are very good reasons for this, which all the stick-in-the-mud,
inflexible, learning-averse neophobes who are whining and complaining
about "productive desktops" are completely missing.

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