fed 15 + gnome 3 works nice, but ...

[Alexander Volovics]

On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 11:17:36AM +0100, Rui Tiago Cação Matos wrote:

> > Though I don't feel happy about it at all. The developers are (and
> > have been) doing great work (the overall concept of gnome 3 is
> > innovative and promising) but are'nt they getting just a tiny bit
> > too authoritative and dictatorial: opensource should be about
> > freedom and choice. And the choice should not only be 'you can still
> > choose another window manager'.
 
> No. The freedom (and the choices you have therefrom) is about the
> code's license. How you run a specific project (i.e. what goes in the
> official source code tree) is a different thing. Most (every?)
> successful project runs some form of a meritocracy. Read on it.

Strictly speaking you are right. I was thinking more of
the fact that most licenses allow you to change or add
to the code for private use or to give it back to the
community. 

And I could not care less if they run a theocracy,
a timocracy or a kleptocracy while designing and
implementing the project. Probably some tight knit
group is needed to do such work successfully but I still
think that at some point a 'feedback channel' should
be open, and not only to the in-crowd.
You are not making a painting or a sculpture but an
object used on a daily bases by millions of people
who would at the very least like to make some slight
changes to suit their tastes and needs.

I fist started using linux on a regular basis in 1994/1995
with the appearance of Red Hat Linux 1. Back then a lot of
things 'under the hood' were relatively 'uncomplicated'.
I had a pretty good idea how things worked and interacted.
I could even occasionally change a script to suit my needs.

With the enormous progress made since then I have only
a very hazy idea of what actually happens and I am completely
dependent on primary and secondary sources for instructions
and tools to implement any changes.

>From all that I have heard and read the primary concern
of the developers seems to be the workability of the
design with scant attention being payed to configurability.
The least they could do is provide 'handles' so that the
distro's or secondary sources could provide tools easily.
And I hope that this is going to happen (or is happening now).

Even architects work to user specifications and keep
the needs and wishes of inhabitants in mind. 

Alexander