F15 and GNOME 3

[Adam Williamson]

On Tue, 2011-04-05 at 08:15 +0000, JB wrote:

> > I'm sorry to have to explain this, but your mails are completely off
> > topic for this list, which is about testing - as in assuring the
> > functionality of - Fedora. It is not about the design of upstream
> > components of Fedora releases. The appropriate places to discuss the
> > design of GNOME 3 would be the GNOME design IRC channel or the GNOME
> > Shell mailing list, but as a bit of friendly advice, I would suggest
> > that what you take to those places should be concrete proposals backed
> > up with evidence or at least a consistent concept, not Grand
> > Pronouncements That They're Doing It All Wrong. Those don't go down so
> > well.
> > ...
> 
> Adam,
> 
> The Lady protests too much ... ;-)
> 
> Fedora, by including GNOME 3 (or any other distro component) in its test
> release, is effectively *endorsing* it

In a way, I guess, sure.

>  and expecting a feedback from users.

Not so much. It's to do with the mechanics of how stuff gets done. I
don't design GNOME Shell. No-one else on this list designs GNOME Shell.
Changes to the design of GNOME Shell do not happen in the Fedora
project, they happen in the GNOME project. So it makes little sense to
take wide-ranging concerns about the design of GNOME Shell to a Fedora
group which isn't at all involved in the design of GNOME Shell.

We take feedback, sure. Part of 'taking feedback' is directing that
feedback elsewhere, when elsewhere would be a better place for it.

> So, Fedora test list is the right place to talk about it (yes, in addition to
> specific component's list as well).

No, I still disagree. It's a simple practical consideration. You are not
going to achieve any significant change in GNOME Shell's design by
arguing about it on the Fedora QA mailing list.

> Fedora, by *edorsing* the above, made a mistake.
> It can be undone (yes, it is a test version of both products, Fedora and
> GNOME 3).

As far as this relates to a Fedora choice it's kind of on topic, so I'll
reply to say: no, not really. There would be absolutely no sense in
Fedora shipping a dead build of GNOME 2; Fedora is a distribution which
prides itself on moving with the times and following upstream, so trying
to keep a zombie unsupported old desktop running is not what we do at
all. The other choice would be to switch to a different default desktop,
which a) isn't a choice QA can make and b) would be just as disruptive
as a new GNOME version, anyway.

> You, as a Fedora QA representative, lovingly calling yourself Community Monkey
> with all that it implies, can and should collect and direct Fedora's and
> users/testers' concerns to GNOME 3 devs as well. You can quote us, if
> appropriate, when expressing your own views as well, regardless whether you
> (dis)agree with or are unsure of them.

As Rahul explained, this makes sense if your feedback was a clear-cut
and limited bug; that's easy to pass on. Passing on grand concerns about
the whole design of the Shell does not fit into this category. I could
post a pointer to your post on an upstream list, sure, but then what?
They are not going to adopt your idea wholesale. Do they reply with
questions and comments, I then forward those to this list, you reply to
this list, I forward your reply to the other list, and so on ad
absurdam? I hope you can see why that would be silly. There's no point
in going through a middle-man for a detailed and wide-ranging question
like this.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net