GNOME as the default desktop (was Re: Fedora Board Meeting Minutes - 2010-12-06)

[Jared K. Smith]

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 11:51 AM, Christoph Wickert
<christoph.wickert at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Some examples of what this means:

I've got to be honest here -- I don't know the complete history and
all the details behind the "default desktop" decision made by previous
Boards.   I can tell you, however, that I've been around long enough
to know this isn't the first time we've had this discussion, and
probably won't be the last.  (And for some reason, these conversations
always come up in December.)  I'm not sure that responding to every
bullet point in Christoph's  list would be productive in helping us
move forward.  What I can say is that for better or for worse, Gnome
is still the default desktop environment in Fedora.  Are there ways we
can improve?  Absolutely!  Have there been mistakes and hurt feelings
in the past.  Sure!  The only way I see us moving forward, however, is
to work together and communicate and cooperate rather than keep
bringing up mistakes and misunderstandings from the past.

My job as the Fedora Project Leader is to ensure that the Fedora
community is a welcoming environment.  Maybe it's the eternal optimist
in me, but I would hope that we could find a way to move past the
complaining and blaming and the rampant accusations and find
constructive ways to communicate better and then *work* towards a
better tomorrow.

> And now there is
> http://nicubunu.blogspot.com/2010/12/second-class-citizens.html

I saw Nicu's post this morning, and have been thinking all day long
about to give it a proper response.  There's a part of Nicu's post
that resonates with me, but at the same time, I think parts of it are
overblown. I too was in the Design team IRC meeting, and have to admit
that things there didn't seem quite so drastic to me as Nicu makes it
sound in his blog post. Let me address the request that started this
off -- the request that we ship the default Gnome 3 wallpaper as the
F15 wallpaper, in celebration of the Gnome 3 release.  (I'm going to
use the word "request", as I have no other data to imply that it was
anything other than a friendly request.  I know others have
characterized this as a mandate and not a request, but I think that's
a pretty big assumption to make barring further information.)

I can see both sides of things of the argument -- the side where the
Gnome community would like a little added recognition for their Gnome
Shell / Gnome 3 release, and the side where the Fedora community would
like its own branding on its distribution.  I've asked for
clarification and more details from the Desktop team at Red Hat, so
that I have a better picture of exactly what it is that they would
like us to do.  I'd hate to make assumptions before I have the whole
picture.  Once I do have a clearer picture, then we can work together
as a community to find the right answer, and hopefully one that is a
win-win situation for all involved.  (And if not, one where we can
respectfully disagree.)

Please note that I'll be following this subject very closely over the
next few days, and will do my best to communicate with the community
as I learn more details.

--
Jared Smith
Fedora Project Leader