An apology is required from me.

[Bill Davidsen]

Greg Woods wrote:
>> I tend to agree with ajax's opinion on the
>> "Linux is all about choice" meme:
>>
>> https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-January/msg00861.html
>
> What ajax seems to be saying is that it is not realistic to include
> every possible choice in a given distribution. I agree. There are
> desktop environments available for Linux that are not shipped with
> Fedora, and one cannot reasonably complain about that. But you still
> have the choice to use a different distro that provides the choices you
> want if you are not satisfied with the choices that one distro includes.
>
> I don't think the problem is necessarily about saying that "Linux is
> about choice", but about expectations that this means every possible
> choice should be available in your favorite distro.
>
If you regard "choose a learning curve" because the UI people know how to use is 
totally gone as a valid expression of "all about choice" then you probably 
aren't upset with GNOME3. If you envision Fedora as hobby computing only, where 
retraining costs don't matter because the users are all geeks in dorm rooms, 
then it was a viable thought, but it may be a self-fulfilling prophesy.

I personally regard it as a choice between financial hit from retraining costs 
and lost productivity and a hit on security as people "get off the upgrade bus" 
at FC14. People who find both of these unacceptable have RHEL6 or a clone as an 
option, and some are taking that path.

If Fedora had offered people a choice between UI as it does with KDE, XFCE, etc, 
I believe that GNOME3 would be just another niche community. I'm fairly 
confident that GNOME3 has prevented some Windows users from even trying Linux, 
not having a WM which is similar enough to Windows to avoid "different=hard to 
use" reactions is a bad thing, and GNOME2 doesn't seem to scare people, at least 
in my experience.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot