Board efforts: scope, concept, and permission?

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Tue, Feb 02, 2010 at 06:29:33PM -0800, Jesse Keating wrote:
> On Tue, 2010-02-02 at 17:07 -0500, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> > An interesting note here is that target audience is of no use in deciding
> > this.  KDE and GNOME aim for the same target audiences but have different
> > ideas of how to reach them.  The details that moving forward or staying back
> > with these libraries and services would entail is not about target audience
> > but more about Fedora being being on the leading edge of technology.  Even
> > that isn't a good fit for making a decision as there's no demand that
> > everything move forward -- any app might be on the leading edge in one
> > technology even when some other pieces of its underpinings are more stodgy. 
> 
> I think if you look closer at KDE vs Gnome you will find a difference in
> the target audience.  One one hand you have people who want to use their
> computer to do tasks, and have the operating system stay out of the way,
> and on the other hand you have people who want to be able to configure
> their computer to work in a very specific to them way and have the
> operating system allow them to make these configuration choices.
> 
This may be true on its own but we need to be careful of setting it up as
a dichotomy because it becomes false when put in that context.  I want my
computer to stay out of my way and let me do things.  Yet I use KDE because
KDE stays out of my way much better than Gnome.  So no matter what the
desktop environment targeted, KDE gave me the option to have the OS stay out
of my way whereas gnome forced me to fight the OS when I just wanted to get
my work done.

> I'm blowing up a subtle difference, but it's that subtle difference that
> is very clear in Gnome vs KDE, and it becomes an interesting point.  Do
> we, the project wish to default to a product that targets the people who
> just want to use their computers easily without tweaking every last
> detail, or do we wish to default to a product that caters to the
> tinkerers and the tweakers and those that wish to have total control
> over how their system works?
> 
So there's a false thought in here.  Just because you have a configuration
option doesn't mean you have to change it.  It just means you can change it.
If I install KDE and don't touch any configuration options I have a usable,
general purpose desktop that probably fits me as well as gnome.  If I were
the kind of person that hated touching configuration, I'd be in the same
boat whether I used KDE or GNOME.

> But you are right, not only are we picking a target audience, but we're
> also picking a route to that target audience.
> 
<nod>

-Toshio
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