Proposed F19 Feature: Cinnamon as Default Desktop

[Peter Robinson]

On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 3:47 PM, Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> On 01/28/2013 02:06 AM, Dan Mashal wrote:
>> You don't see the point of MATE or Cinnamon? How long did you play with
>> them 5 minutes?
>
> Do you remember the GNOME 1.x => 2.x transition? Similarly to how there
> are forks of GNOME now to 'keep the GNOME 2 candle burning,' there were
> forks of GNOME 1.x to 'keep the GNOME 1 candle burning.'
>
> Do you remember what they were called? I didn't; I had to look 'em up.
> Do you ever wonder what happened to them? Dead projects nobody seems to
> remember. Do we really want to switch to a desktop that history has
> shown is likely to become a dead project in a few years?
>
> http://osdir.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1295
>
> It also doesn't seem smart to switch from a desktop on the basis that
> Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox - kernel developers, not UI experts or even
> typical desktop users by any means - don't like it. I think switching
> the desktop that has been our default for over 10 years and 18 releases
> requires just a bit more research and reason than that.

I agree. Linus as a side cycled through KDE, XFCE and is back to gnome
with one of the recent releases.

The gnome desktop certainly isn't perfect but I see a lot more users
using it than most of the rest of the other options. I don't believe
the "no one uses it so we should change" has much credence and while
some people have moved to something else and stayed there I think a
lot more more have tried others and come back when they realise that
all desktops have their issues and it's often a case of "better the
devil you know...." but it would be nicer if the gnome team actually
initiated a feedback loop with Fedora about some of the issues too.

Peter