Underlying DE for the Workstation product

[Christian Schaller]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alex GS" <alxgrtnstrngl at gmail.com>
> To: desktop at lists.fedoraproject.org
> Sent: Monday, February 3, 2014 3:09:43 PM
> Subject: Re: Underlying DE for the Workstation product
> 
> cshalle wrote:
> ---
> Improving touch screen support is a goal for both GNOME and Fedora, simply
> because laptops are heading that way and if we offer something
> that doesn't even try to use the touchscreen where it makes sense, users will
> go elsewhere.
> ---
> 
> Linux based solutions oriented towards tablets, hybrids and
> touch-screen-laptops already exist: Chrome OS and Android. Realistically
> nobody in the Linux community has the resources that Google does or the
> mainstream market-share. Everyone knows the obvious, Google will dominate
> that space. In the technology press everyone is saying the "Year of the
> Linux Desktop" will be because of Google and Chrome OS as well as Android.
> Please, don't waste your time and resources, leave this use-case alone.

Nobody in the Linux community got the resources that Microsoft or Apple does either, 
yet here we are. And the reason we are looking at it is that even the technical workstation 
users are going to be at least partly running laptops and will be looking for some
basic support. We are not looking at turning the system into a pure touch screen 
experience, rather add some touch functionality where it makes sense.

> Red Hat and Fedora as well as similar platforms thrive in the more
> traditional desktop space and specifically workstations. If you walk into
> Pixar, NASA or CERN you'll find Fedora/RHEL on workstations and servers.
> Look at Ubuntu at Google or Facebook. If I call up any major OEM I can get
> workstations with two different operating systems: Windows 7 and RHEL. Not
> surprisingly the product is called Fedora Workstation.

I am well aware of this, I meet or call with a lot of these customers on a regular 
basis. And I also spend time working with them to prepare their transition to
GNOME 3 as part of their RHEL 7 transition.

> There's a theme at play here that if you focus 100% on traditional
> workstations you can having a winning product that will even compete on
> equal footing against Mac OS and Windows.
> 
> Linux distributions and desktop projects have been chasing the hybrid and
> tablet and it's had the effect of throwing their workstation users off of
> the bus. When Ubuntu and Fedora abandoned Gnome 2 and focused on Unity and
> Gnome 3 this caused major disruption and chaos. Around the same time many
> developers and engineers ended up going with Mac OS because Apple provided a
> conservative traditional desktop experience that was highly polished and
> professional.
> 
> Last night I was looking at Gnome Shell extensions and I realized that most
> of them had the effect of turning Gnome 3 back into Gnome 2. The fact is
> that the community and specifically the workstation use-case is desperately
> seeking a Gnome 2 replacement that's why we have XFCE, LXDE and Cinnamon.
> This is why MATE exists and is rising in popularity. The Linux community
> still loves Gnome 2 and wants it back.
> 
> This is why I propose a compromise that will work for both Gnome and Fedora
> Workstation:
> 
> Have both Gnome 2 (MATE) and Gnome 3 (Gnome Shell) be parallel but related
> branches of the same Gnome product.
> 
<SNIP>

I am generally negative to any such solutions as they tend to suck resources away from 
advancing something over to trying to keep multiple options sorta working together.
Any solution one choose at any given point in time will have holes or missing functionality.
I don't think the best solution is ever to start filling those gaps with complete alternate solutions,
as they will just be bringing in their own set of holes and bugs and in the end you are not
moving forward anymore, you are just jumping around trying to avoid regressing and trying to 
plug security issues.

Christian