Gnome 3 ~ Windows 8? => choosing the fedora desktop

[夜神 岩男]

On Thu, 2011-07-14 at 20:16 -0400, Genes MailLists wrote:
>  Ok then - so then the debate here should not be about gnome 3 missing
> features - we all agree - that should be an upstream discussion.
> 
>  The discussion should turn to what the default desktop should be - in
> the past it was  gnome 2 - gnome 2 is dead and we now have 4 desktop
> managers to choose among (gnome 3 being just one).
> 
>  So - lets choose the default desktop manager for fedora from among:
> 
>    Gnome 3
>    KDE
>    XFCE
>    LXDE
>    ? Other?
> 
>  How do we go about changing from gnome 2 to one of the above- since
> gnome 3 is not gnome 2 it should be on equal footing from above list -
> should this be by a vote on a website - discussion - fesco - what?
> 
>   What is the best mechanism for the fedora community to choose the
> default desktop?
> 
>   May the best desktop win :-)

This is a much more interesting way of framing the discussion as regards
Fedora. Gnome 3 =! Gnome 2, therefore why give any special consideration
to Gnome 3 over more well defined projects which predate it? And since
we are discussing defaults, the option to use another DM is not a way
out here.

I think we are living with a cultural assumption that Gnome would be the
default without really considering that Gnome as we knew is gone,
completely. Put another way, if Gnome 3 were called something else it is
perhaps less likely that it would remain the default.

This is not so different from the current BTRFS debate. ext2/3 is not
ext4, which is not BTRFS, but if BTRFS were called "ext5" people would
worry over it a lot less.

Perhaps there is a general sense that we've put so much into the Gnome
community since the switch from KDE that considering an alternative to
it feels bad. Someone on here has a great .sig along the lines of "No
matter how far you've gone down the road, turn back." Old proverbs are
usually worth some contemplation.

On the other hand, perhaps Gnome 3 embodies such a radically better
technical approach that interface silliness is just that -- mere
silliness which can be easily adjusted -- but the underlying base is so
solid and logical that people who are really familiar with it are just
enduring the arguments for now while they prepare Good Things. I
consider this to be fairly likely -- though that doesn't help not scare
desktop users away in the meantime.

Gnome 2, were it to remain alive in some form, would require a great
deal of critical Single Architect cleanup and refactoring. Obviously
that was not considered to be worth the effort (which is interesting,
considering the history of nixy development and of X in general, and the
broad acceptance of Gnome 2 as a platform standard).

-Iwao