Developers responsibillity to Fedora Users

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 09/27/2011 03:09 PM, Andrew Haley wrote:
> On 09/27/2011 12:01 PM, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>> On 09/27/2011 11:59 AM, Andrew Haley wrote:
>>> On 09/26/2011 11:59 PM, Roger wrote:
>>>> On 26/09/11 19:38, Andrew Haley wrote:
>>>>> On 09/22/2011 02:15 PM, Aaron Konstam wrote:
>>>>>> Alan Cox is exactly right that the users of Fedora products get them
>>>>>> free and one can make a strong case that therefore Fedora developers
>>>>>> have no responsibility to listen to user's complaints.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> However, the Fedora users provide a service to the ReHat company of
>>>>>> identifying bugs that otherwise would show up to annoy the paying users
>>>>>> of RedHat Enterprise .
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is probably a weak argument to support the developers of Fedora
>>>>>> software listening to its users but what is clear is the current
>>>>>> situation leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the current Fedora
>>>>>> user-base. Clearly developers can ignore our complaints, but I have no
>>>>>> evidence that the paying Enterprise customers will be more tolerant of
>>>>>> the strange direction that RedHat is taking.
>>>>> This is all too vague for me to understand.  What are you talking about?
>>>>>
>>>> Some say that the new Fedora GUI is unhelpful and possibly difficult to
>>>> use, preferring a simpler desktop.
>>>
>>> Ahh, this is all about GNOME 3.  It's very unfair to describe the
>>> actions/attitude of GNOME developers at that of all Fedora developers.
>>
>> As long as Fedora ship a "first release", as you prefer to call it, as
>> "default DE", people will identify and set equal "Fedora" with "Gnome3".
>
> They're wrong.  A DE is just a thin skin over an OS, as we all know.
> I'm a developer of Fedora software, and the DE has nothing to do with
> me.
No disagreement - My position is similar. I think Fedora basically is an 
excellent distro, unfortunately its default DE is unusable to me.

> No matter how much I listen to people's complaints about GNOME,
> nothing is going to happen.
Please elaborate.

Because the Gnome devs are preferring not to listen to their former 
users' complaints and prefer to furtherly isolate themselves in their 
"devine ivory cathedral's tower"?

Or, provided many Gnome devs are on RHAT's payrole, because RHAT has a 
secret "grant masterplan" to turn Fedora and later on RHEL into a 
tablet/phone OS?

My view: The Gnome devs chose to kill their former user-base, i.e. also 
Fedora's user-base. Therefore it would be consequent for Fedora's 
management to reconsider if Gnome can any longer be Fedora's default DE.

>  All I can do is point out to people that
> XFCE might be more to their taste.
Like others said before, in comparison to Gnome2, xfce looks like lego 
and is a step backward, but it at least is not as unusable as Gnome3.

To me, using xfce so far is the bitter pill to swallow and the only 
viable alternative to avoid having to switch the distro.

>> I find this very relatable and therefore find "throwing Fedora and
>> Gnome3 into one big bowl" to be not without justification.
>
> It is entirely without justification.
I disagree - Fedora and Gnome are closely connected.

>>    This new new-user-base likely is (mostly) satisfied, but many of these
>> distros' "old long term supporters and users" simply feel their so far
>> choosen distro's DE doesn't suite their needs anymore.
>
> This distro has more than one DE.
Right, but which? People had reasons to use Gnome2, now they are being 
forced to switch to GUI/DEs they never wanted.

Ralf