Re: Control Center Behavior

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

mike <mike redtux demon co uk> writes: 
> I am disturbed by this comment
> 
> I think users are in ascending order
> developers
> 2.power users/testers 
> 3.older gnome users 
> 4.new gnome users 
> 5.kde converts 
> 6.windows converts
> 
> The forum on gnome desktop will get feedback from both ordinary gnome
> users AND 5 and 6

No desktop user who actually needs good usability, which will mean
nearly all our users at the time that we have 5% desktop marketshare,
would ever ever ever post to gnomedesktop.org, or even understand what
GNOME is, or know about "gnome-control-center --use-shell"

If you are a user that knows what --use-shell means or posts to
gnomedesktop.org, you are by definition in the tiny minority sub-1%
bit of the desktop market.

As far as I'm concerned, our goal is to get reasonable desktop
marketshare away from Windows. To do that, we have to meet the needs
of the next 5% of users. And to meet their needs we have to know that
they are _silent_, and look out for them anyway.

This means ignoring a 90% majority vote from the sub-1% market, in the
(I believe few) cases where their interests are in significant
conflict with general users. I do believe we can meet the main needs
of the current traditional linux userbase though, while still going
after more users. I don't consider it a zero-sum game.

> So I see it as an important source of feedback, as to how gnome is
> working in practice. Not the only source, but certainly not to be
> dismissed out of hand

I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. I think we have to keep the
traditional userbase reasonably happy, we need them testing,
dogfooding, and caring about GNOME. However the software can't be
fundamentally or principally designed for them.

Anyone in the traditional userbase who regularly advocates Linux as a
solution and wants to see it succeed against Microsoft really has to
altruistically agree with this point. And I hope most GNOME developers
would be in that category - I just don't think GNOME is an interesting
project if our goal is to be the next 'leet toy for techies, a la
enlightenment or fvwm. We are not, fundamentally, designing the
software just for ourselves. We're designing it in order to matter and
be relevant and do something that's genuinely a big deal.

Havoc