Gnome replaces Unity

[Liam Proven]

You do a lot of rambling and self-contradiction, you know that? In one
line, you agree with me; in the next, you say I am talking nonsense;
in the next, something random and apparently unconnected and possibly
paranoiac... and repeat. It's very hard to follow and to work out if
you have an overall point here.

I will attempt to respond, though.

On 15 October 2017 at 16:21, Xen <list at xenhideout.nl> wrote:
> Liam Proven schreef op 15-10-2017 15:25:
>>
>> I'd probably agree -- _if_ they knew Windows first.
>
> Otherwise they would never have started using a computer.

Not even remotely, no.

There are 7 billion people on the planet. About a third are on the
internet. About half have never touched a computer.

> We can basically agree that they were trying to be different without good
> reason, whether that was because of legal threat or because of just....
> wanting to be not-windows.

Yes.

> There is no way you can create something good if the thing you would
> ordinarily create, is not allowed.

Utter nonsense.

Programming is a creative art.

Look at any creative art. Painting, sculpture, music, poetry, anything.

There are multiple genres of all of them. In music, from rock to jazz
to classical to early to plainsong to rap to brass-band to folk...
there are hundreds, thousands, of forms. Many freely borrow from one
another. Sometimes they cross over or merge, sometimes, they diverge
and split.

I like trip-hop but I don't like gangster rap, but they're both rap. I
love Bach for the complexity but rigorous patterns; I am not so fond
of Beethoven, whose repetition bores me; and I can't stand
Stockhausen.

Look at oulippo writing, for instance. By forbidding yourself
something, you can be guided in the direction of creative greatness.

> If you are in the Netherlands and you want to find the best route to Paris,
> but you are not allowed to go through Belgium, that kinda will not result in
> a good outcome.

But there are lots of other places you can go, maybe via an
interesting route. And many of them could take you to Paris.

This January, I flew from my home in Brno to Sofia in Bulgaria. The
cheapest route was to take a train to Vienna, fly to Geneva, and
thence to Sofia. It took a long time, but it was pleasant,
comfortable, and inexpensive. I got to spend some very old Swiss
francs, and I got a break, a good meal, a couple of beers and a copy
of Charlie Hebdo.

I came back by train: Sofia -> Belgrade -> Budapest -> Bratislava -> Brno.

It was cheaper still, fairly direct, but took nearly 2 days and was
mostly not at all pleasant.

Direct doesn't always mean good.

> Being different should never be a goal in itself, because that means your
> competitor becomes your source of inspiration -- all your designs are now
> reactionary.

Nonsense. Sometimes striking out in a new direction is the best thing
to do, rather than being stuck in a rut.

> You can't create something good if your biggest concern is to not be like
> something else.

Sure you can. That's where most great art came from.

> Yes like KDE has a number of Window switchers, two of which are "small
> icons" and "big icons".

[Totally irrelevant wibbling cut]

> Meanwhile Cinnamon is not burdened by those "dare to be different" dreams
> and has a functional window switcher by default.

It's a decent desktop but it's not even a good copy of Windows. It
came along when it was evident that MS wasn't going to sue, indeed
couldn't, and thus, copying Windows was in fact safe. Also, it's from
a small, nearly one-man band. MS are not going to get millions out of
him.

> There is no excuse for having a phletora of window switchers except the most
> obvious one.

Nonsense.

There were _dozens_ of GUIs before Windows. Most didn't _have_ window
switchers at all. Several had radically different ones.

> Innovation, sure but.... for what reason?

Avoiding the wrath of a multi-billion-dollar highly-litigious company
is a good reason.

But so is just trying to do something new.

> Why are you trying to fix what ain't broke?

Because its owner wasn't happy with the plagiarism. That's fair and
it's a good reason.

> I am sorry Liam but there is absolutely no functional reason or excuse for
> the example just given.

The KDE thing? Don't understand, don't care. I find the KDE panels
broken beyond usability anyway.

> The only reason there can be for not including medium sized icons is "We
> don't want to be like everyone else".

Show me the icon size selector in Windows.

Mostly, there isn't one. The only one I can think of -- the Quick
Launch bar -- has 2 settings: large and small. It's enough.

Apparently it bothers you. I don't even know what setting you mean,
that's how little it bothers me.

But I bet you don't know what a vertical deskbar is or means.

One man's vital setting is another's irrelevant frippery.

The problem with KDE is that they've tried to indulge everyone and the
result is a confused mess.

The problem with GNOME 3 is that they've shut everyone out and tried
to impose one vision.

So I won't use either.

> And the consequence is a non-functional product. Innovation my ass. There
> was no reason for it. It worked fine before, now it doesn't.

There was good reason. I have spelled it out. Stop ignoring it.

>> That is not agreeing with me at all. You're putting your own words in
>> my mouth and then agreeing with them.
>
> I knew you would say that lol.

Then why say it?

> But if we take away all of the non-functional "innovations", what do we
> really have?
>
> - Windows
> - OS X
> - ....
> - ....
> ?
>
> So all of the other ways of doing a desktop: I don't see them.

You have already admitted that you don't know one very important historical OS.

Now you are boasting about your ignorance. That is _never_ something
to brag about.

So, you want a list of other desktop models? You clearly didn't bother
to read the article I posted, as I specified a number.

But here are some:

* Acorn RISC OS.

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/riscos311

FOSS clone: ROX desktop.

http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/

* NeXTstep/OpenStep.

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/openstep42

FOSS clone: GNUstep.

http://wiki.gnustep.org/index.php/Screenshots

* BeOS tracker. FOSS clones:

Haiku -- https://www.haiku-os.org/slideshows/haiku-1/

ZevenOS -- http://www.zevenos.com/screenshots/screenshots-zevenos

* Classic MacOS.  FOSS clone -- Sparta, now long dead.

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/macos90

* Apple Lisa -- no FOSS clone.

http://toastytech.com/guis/lisa2.html

... Conceptually closer to the Lisa OS than anything else, though...

* OS/2 Warp Workplace Shell

http://toastytech.com/guis/os220.html

* AmigaOS

http://toastytech.com/guis/amiga35.html

FOSS clone -- AROS
Commercial clones and derivatives -- MorphOS, AmigaOS 4

* The original GUI, the thing Steve Jobs saw & didn't fully understand.

http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/347/1859
http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/347/1861
http://toastytech.com/guis/alto3.html

Another very early GUI...

* Symbolics OpenGenera, a Lisp Machine OS

http://lispm.de/symbolics-ui-examples/symbolics-ui-examples.html

That will do for now.

I could go on.

There are _dozens_ of models for desktop GUIs.

There are ones with one panel, two panels, or no panels. There are
text-based app switchers, iconic task switchers, hybrid task
switchers, on-demand-only task switchers, and no task switchers.

There are tiled windows or overlapping windows. 1 window, or 2 windows
(e.g. GEM), or multiple windows.

There are plenty of GUIs with no windows. I co-designed one. We sold thousands.

There are text-oriented GUIs and almost text-free ones, such as SUGAR,
the OLPC project's GUI.

https://www.sugarlabs.org/

There are _legions_ of ways to solve this problem. Some are mature and
well-developed. Some are obscure and almost unknown. Some have
enthusiastic followers, some don't. But it's a broad space.

You proclaim that you only know 2 of them as if that is something to
be proud of. It isn't, it is shameful. You should be embarassed.

You will probably respond that these are the only 2 that are
commercially important, to which I will respond that some of those I
cite were just as dominant in their day, and that today, about a
billion more people use iOS and Android than use all versions of Mac
OS and Windows put together still in use.

> Then there are more similarities between OS X and Windows than differences.

Not really, no.

There's convergence, but they're both 1980s products that have been
competing for 35+ years. They've both copied one another.

> Can OS X minimize? Definitely so.

Sure, and so can untweaked GNOME 3.

> The only prime design philosophy difference that I remember was that of the
> "Application Window" --> Windows apps traditionally followed a bit of an MDI
> interface, with the Mac trying not to.

That's an app-level thing, not a desktop-level one. And MS backtracked
on it >20y ago, so it's historical anyway.

> For the mac, the application is not the window.
>
> So you can close all windows while keeping the app open.

Not in all apps.

> Well Windows solved that by minimizing to the system tray.

It wasn't a "problem" to be solved.

> Yes that's a difference. In practice the only difference is that you have to
> explicitly close applications on the Mac.

Some of them. Less of an issue on OS X when many apps auto-close when
their last window closes.

> OS X has the equivalence of Alt-tab and Ctrl-tab on the Mac, it is
> Command-Tab and Command-~ or something.

I think you have got your words muddled.

> OS X containerizes applications and just puts them in the finder, I agree
> that is a difference. But that's not a desktop aspect.

Firstly, the word "containerise" means something different these days.
I advise you to choose something different.

Secondly, the app-dir concept is also an Acorn one, and Acorn shipped
RISC OS with appdirs before NeXTstep did.

And it is connected with desktop concepts.

Apple and Acorn had a closely-managed filesystem, with technical stuff
buried inside folders the user didn't need to open -- or indeed not in
folders at all. (In ROM on both classic Macs and Acorn Archimedes.)

So the filesystem was clean, presentable, devoid of cryptically-named
stuff only techies would understand. So, to find and launch apps,
users just browsed the filesystem.

Windows and traditional Unix don't have that. Their filesystems are
chock-full of magic system files and system folders, many right there
in plain view in the root directory. So Microsoft had to invent the
idea of a separate app launcher, because it needed to discourage users
from rooting around in the filesystem and accidentally
moving/deleting/renaming/editing something important and breaking the
computer.

Traditional Unix enthusiastically copied this.

With OS X, Apple simply hid stuff you shouldn't fiddle with out of sight.

Some Linuxes reconsider this.

GoboLinux dispenses with the entire filesystem hierarchy and reinvents
the whole thing.
NixOS dispenses with the idea of a human-readable filesystem and puts
it under software management, meaning no identifiable directories at
all -- that's the GUI's job.

> OS X doesn't have a run dialog.

It has Spotlight, from which you can run apps and commands.

> Apple follows more the philosophy of "You don't need to know what goes down
> under the hood".

All modern Linux desktops do.

> But that's not a desktop difference really...

Only peripherally.

> Exposé is different from what Windows does, sure...

Try Windows key + tab.

> The Mac is traditionally not focussed on maximized windows, sure.

True. But they've changed that in recent years. Now, it's possible to
interact solely through full-screen apps.

> So?
>
> All of this is more Apple's philosophy of making everything easy for the
> novice.

Apple started it. Microsoft copied them, but doing it differently.
(DR's GEM copied the Mac, in very much the same way, and got sued.)

Linux copied Microsoft and didn't even bother to try to do something different.

> While I was testing the Mac I had a debate on usenet about this Application
> Window issue. They said the Mac does not have an Application Window.

What is an Application Window, exactly?

> However for most practical purposes, most of them actually did.

> Boohoo. Show me the differences between OS X and Windows that mean it is an
> entirely different thing other than a different cosmetic style.

Principal differences:

* a text-free iconic Dock plus a textual top panel, versus a hybrid taskbar

* a file manager based on folder contents (classic Mac style) or
Miller columns, inherited from NeXTstep [
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_columns ], as opposed to a
hierarchical tree-based file manager

* Fitt's Law-influenced top-panel menus versus in-window menus

* User-explorable filesystem with some hidden elements, versus a
secondary app launcher

* Drives appear on the desktop versus in a virtual "my computer" folder

* Icons arranged in columns from left to right, versus right to left

* Primary control via the mouse, and can be keyboardless, versus
primary control by the keyboard, can be mouseless

* Primary visualisation of an app is an icon in the Dock, versus a "main" window

* Free filenames, embedded metadata, versus textual file extensions as
the primary type identifier

Jeez... there are so many, some big, some small...

>> The _people_ are welcoming. The _community_ is welcoming.
>>
>> However, they welcome people who will play by their rules, work their
>> style in their way, conform and comply.
>
>
> Liam, that's a complete contradiction.

No it isn't.

GNOME spends money on outreach. It throws and promotes free
conferences to get people involved. It is an open public project.

But if you want to get involved, you must do so their way.

Most of the other desktops -- KDE, Xfce, Maté etc. -- are a bunch of
people cooperating over the Internet and incrementally refining their
product. They offer choices of how mainstream components appear --
e.g. what type of app switcher -- so different users' desktops can be
totally unlike one another.

GNOME tries to enforce its style, its single interaction model.

GNOME 3 admirers tend to talk about how it "gets out of the way" and
there's nothing much on screen except a single narrow panel when
you're in an app. Most other desktops are more in-your-face, with
multiple visible panels and menus a lot of the time.

KDE, Xfce, LXDE, etc, don't _have_ a single "way", one coherent vision
of how a desktop works. They provide tools for users to assemble
something they want. GNOME 2 did that. GNOME 3 doesn't. It says, do it
our way, or write your own alternative, and it largely ignores that
any other desktops even exist.

> Harsh rebuffing is not exactly evidence of welcoming.

Because the GNOME team didn't think Ubuntu was doing it the right way.

I think GNOME made a big mistake here, but right now, it looks like
GNOME won. :-(

> I am not eager to say but another team also has this style; you are welcome
> as long as you don't bring any ideas of your own and just do our work for
> us.

Well, yes, that's how I see GNOME. Who are you thinking of?

> I don't see what I have said thus far that was wrong.

Of course you don't! Or why would you say it?

In this [over-lengthy] response I've tried to highlight a bunch of examples.

> So you come with a desktop environment for PDAs which, due to the nature of
> a small screen, works with maximized 'windows' only.

It ran on laptops too.

First thing that sprang to mind with no minimise command. A bunch of
those I've itemised above in this post don't either.

> This is no different from Android. You can't minimize an Android app.

True.

> You can close it, and you can bring out the 'desktop' but minimizing isn't
> there.

Well it doesn't really _have_ a desktop as such, does it?

Remix OS does. Go look that up, see the difference.

ChromeOS kinda does. I am not sure if it has minimisation.

> Personally I find that a bit annoying but because all apps are fullscreen
> (and tiny) it doesn't bother you so much.

It doesn't annoy me at all, TBH.


> The Gnome team apparently thinks that people want only maximized windows on
> a 1920x1080 desktop.

That is an odd view, yes, I agree. Well-put.

> Fine, but to conclude then that people do not want to minimize is false. I
> don't know where they get that idea. "Most people don't minimize." Did they
> hold surveys?

I have asked them much the same. They say they did.

>> History is _important_. If you don't know it, you can't understand why
>> things are the way they are.
>
> Let me say again that Ubuntu was designed for a netbook and I actually do
> believe its design is excellent FOR netbooks.

Hey. I used Unity for years on machines with 2 23"+ monitors. It was
superb as a desktop GUI. I already really miss it.

>> Qt was originally a (dual-licensed) commercial product. That shows in
>> its polish and maturity.
>
> I knew that.
>
>> Gtk was merely the toolkit for GIMP. 20y later it's only on version
>> 3.something. Old does not equal mature.
>
>
> That's no excuse. When I first started working with GTK I was appalled by
> how bad it was.
>
> I *never* expected it to be so bad.

Hmmm. Well, I have heard similar, so I must give you this one.

>> Although the kernel was written by a Finn, a lot of the Linux movement
>> is American, such as GNU, and there is a lot of NIH syndrome. Unix is
>> American. C is American. C++ is by a Dane, Bjarne Stroustroup.
>
> Never knew that, thanks.

(!)


>> So GNOME was a response to KDE. It was a FOSS desktop, ideologically
>> pure, without the taint of the commercial, dual-licensed KDE (which
>> RMS would not tolerate), and written in C, not the decadent C++.
>
>
> Knew the first part, not the second.

It's not talked about much now.

The nationalism aspect only occurred to me as I was writing, so thanks
for inspiring that line of thought.

>> I respect GNOME for what it's trying to do, and I like the people, I
>> just don't like the result.
>
> Results follow from intentions.
>
> If Gnome's intention is to create a Kiosk computer, than that's what it will
> become.

I don't think it is, but I think that they are doing something useful.
I don't like the result, but it may yet be instructive. "How much can
you remove from a WIMP desktop GUI and still have something easy to
use that power users will like?"

I find it interesting that I know power users who like GNOME and yet I
also hear people saying that it's good for beginners too. If that's
true, it's a ringing endorsement.

And perhaps it's me.

http://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/52807.html

>> Yes, I knew what you meant. You don't need to spell it out. I
>> understood the first time. I just told you the truth: I never even
>> noticed.
>
>
> Not noticing means not seeing.

I didn't see it, because I don't care what order the buttons come in.
I have no particular expectation that they will come in any order.
I've used GUIs that had totally different idioms and don't have
"Apply" or "OK" buttons.

RISC OS: no Apply, because you adjust-click "OK" to apply settings
without closing.
OS/2 WPS: no OK button, because settings are applied as you choose
them & you use the normal window close control to exit the dialogue
box. Cancel reverts settings.

> Maybe be more clear next time then ;-).

You are looking for a meaning that wasn't there.

You're looking for a response to the buttons changing positions. If
someone doesn't expect particular positions and so doesn't even notice
that they have changed, that does _not_ mean that they like _or
dislike_ the change.

> Because that also means you don't remember it and can't actually conjure up
> an image of it?

I didn't notice that Cinnamon dialogs were any different from GNOME or
KDE or whatever dialogs.

>> A few days. No decent vertical panels. Not for me. If they implement
>> that, I'll come look again.
>
> No time to get frustrated by the dialogs then is there.

I'd say the opposite. If it mattered to me, I'd notice _immediately_.

> I mean "Never even noticed" is a bit worthless if you are not even there
> long enough to start to be bothered by it.
>
> You make me angry now.

Well, good, I guess, because you'd angered me way before.

> Playing with words.
>
> I was also not bothered the first couple of days.
>
> But after a while you just notice how unintuitive it is.

No computer is "intuitive". We all _learned_ this stuff.

There's nothing "intuitive" about writing left-to-right or
right-to-left; some scripts did both on one page (google
"boustrephodon"), some wrote top-to-bottom.

It's all just  what we're used to.

> Next time maybe only speak about stuff you have actually used.

*Grin*

I have used _way_ more desktops, OSes and GUIs than you have, from
everything you've said.

>> One person's disruptive change is another's trivial unimportant detail.
>
> Yes, except that you can't even speak from your own experience.

Oh, I can, but it seems that it is so much broader than yours that you
get all excited over little tiny differences that are so small I
barely notice them.

And that, predictably, infuriates you.

Which means it's time for me to get off the computer for the day.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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