Underlying DE for the Workstation product, Desktop -vs- Workstation

[Liam]

On Feb 2, 2014 12:04 AM, "Alexander GS" <alxgrtnstrngl at gmail.com> wrote:

<snip>

> liam.bulkley wrote:
> ---
> The intended audience for G3 is exactly the opposite of the user that
> Fedora Workstation is targeting.
> ---
>
> Exactly, there's a huge pent-up demand for the traditional Gnome 2
> experience just upgraded slightly. Oddly enough if you were to buy a Mac
> you could get the full Gnome 2 experience but if you use Gnome Shell or
> Unity you cannot.  Even if you look at Chrome OS from Google it doesn't
> stray that far from the traditional desktop metaphor.  Chrome OS is much
> closer to Gnome 2 than it is to Gnome 3 Shell.  Google knows if it did
> something too radical the product wouldn't sell.
>
> That's the whole point of my post. Make it easy for users from other
> Linux distributions or from Mac or Windows to transition easily to
> something they're familiar with and meets their expectations of what a
> desktop workstation should be like. Be ambitious, expand the Fedora
> user-base far beyond your own expectations, become a leader in the
> Mac/Unix/Linux workstation market.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
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> desktop at lists.fedoraproject.org
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I agree there is a demand for such a de but I don't think going back to
that interface is a good idea. We're now at a place where there's demand
for new interfaces. Ones that are more intuitive but also let you perform
your work tasks more easily. Why should we be constrained by DEs designed
thirty years ago when demands are different now?
G3, W8, the various mobile OSs speak to this, I think. The mobile OSs have,
more clearly I think, shown us how interfaces should be designed in tandem
with new use patterns. In those cases there was no break in tradition but
they helped people realize, for the first time, what a proper marriage of
interface and technology can be and, what's more, how much easier it can be
to interact with a computer.
So, IMHO, we need G3. Even if not exactly as it is now, something that
tries to make our jobs easier. Right now it doesn't but mobile technology
has shown it should be possible.
With regards to Fedora we are quite constrained so we have to carefully
pick what we wish to pursue thus it makes most sense, to me, to make what
changes we can to G3 and upstream them if possible.
I think Gnome would benefit from an honest evaluation coming from those who
they feel they can trust but who aren't involved with Gnome on a normal
basis. The goal should be, again, IMHO, to create a DE that is at least as
powerful as a Mac's. One that is designed with the target users of Fedora
Workstation in mind. Not "Power Users" but content creators, "engineers",
and the like. If you have an interface that they find makes their life
easier, and not one that simply gets out of their way but one that helps
them work both more efficiently and more effortlessly, you'll almost
certainly have a superset of what the"average" user wants.
That should be the long term goal, IMHO.

Best/Liam
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