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

[Jaroslav Reznik]

On Wednesday, December 15, 2010 10:32:15 pm Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 12:13 PM, Bill Nottingham <notting at redhat.com> wrote:
> > This is in the realm of 'upstream design decisions should be arbitrarily
> > decided, debated, and reverted via Fedora'. I'm not sure that's a
> > generally good tack to take.
> 
> This and other specific issues are just symptomatic of a larger issue.
> The role of _distributions_  as a conduit to deliver interfaces
> designed  by upstream projects.  There is a real and increasing
> tension about the expectation and responsibility of that role as
> upstream projects start thinking more about designing a specific
> deliverable user experience instead of just a collection of framework
> technologies.
> 
> And its not just GNOME. The not so pleasant discussion concerning
> Meego branding and re-packaging is another symptom.
> 
> We are just going to feel it more in discussing the GNOME relationship
> because its an old and enduring relationship. Up till now GNOME has
> been seen as very distribution neutral in terms of its deliverables
> allow distributors to effectively rebrand and provide a differentiated
> experience that differentiates that distribution from peer
> distributions but all really just variations on GNOME.
> 
> But new peer projects in the space are not taking a distribution
> neutral stance.. they are taking a integrated deliverable experience
> stance and that is putting pressure on GNOME as a project to deliver
> an integrated experience as well via some channel. And as the GNOME as
> OS meme takes firmer hold the desire for downstream distributors to
> deliver that experience will increase as well.
> 
> As a _distribution_ project we are going to have to come to terms with
> this move in thinking towards a highly integrated interface stack.

Not only Gnome, same for KDE and other upstream projects. Even mentioned MeeGo 
aims to that goal (just from opposite side, the bad one). But now the question 
arises - where's the line? Between downstream, upstream? Downstream wants the 
vertically integrated stack - the same interface over all distros, same 
branding, we want horizontal one - we want our own identity - that can 
differentiate us from other distros - otherwise we can close the shop with no 
offering. Even completely different from upstream! It's easy these days - Shell 
and Plasma ECMAScript scriptable - we can work on genuine user interface for our 
users - but then, upstreams would kill us :D They would become invisible... Is 
there intersection? Where?

R.

> -jef
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-- 
Jaroslav Řezník <jreznik at redhat.com>
Software Engineer - Base Operating Systems Brno

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