Re: roadmap status update/update request

[Rob Adams <readams readams net>]

It'd be cool if we could have a "powered by" logo that distros could
include in marketing material, splash screens, documentation etc.  Of
course, we have no way to make it mandatory, but GNOME as a brand has
suffered greatly by the whitewashing practiced by distributions, most
notably the "Java Desktop Environment" (I mean, honestly, what the hell
is that?), but Red Hat's desktop is also a major offender.  Perhaps if
we asked nicely.

The thing I would also like very much to see if a standard "foot" menu
used by the distros.  Turning it into a hat is a major usability problem
for people moving from gnome installation to gnome installation.

The GPL gives anyone to right to remove the gnome branding of course,
but it still annoys me very much when companies take a free software
project, rebrand it, then ship it.  Often the only trace of the original
brand is hidden in about dialogs, and sometimes not even then.  Changing
the splashscreen is one thing (though including a gnome logo in distro
splashscreens isn't a lot to ask), but changing the foot menu is just
wrong.

Anyway, I've degraded to ranting now.  Time to stop.

-Rob

On Tue, 2005-03-08 at 17:57 +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Maw, 2005-03-08 at 17:20, Damon Chaplin wrote:
> > Maybe a simple feedback questionnaire on gnome.org would be a start
> > (avoiding the issue of voting), e.g.
> > 
> >    1) Are you (a) a Home/Office User
> >               (b) an Advanced GNOME User
> >               (c) a Site Administrator
> 
> You need to ask questions that don't imply exclusive options that are
> not - eg I'm an advanced home gnome user ;) If someone wants to try and
> build such a questionnaire I'll be glad to help and interested in the
> results (although the foundation has real marketing people working for
> it who can help a lot lot more and know a lot more about the topic!)
> 
> > If anyone does manage to do some field research they could post the
> > results here as well.
> 
> I'm currently doing some work on this for my MBA. It's a bit early to
> try and summarise or to draw conclusions but 
> 
> 1.	Havoc warned me technical and non-technical users would give totally
> different answers. Havoc was right. Havoc was *very* right.
> 
> 2.	For the general case of abstract arm-waving priorities the FLOSS
> studies in the EU have answers about current levels (as of the survey)
> of desktop usage and priorities for open source *as a whole* not just
> desktop. There is ongoing research into the desktop. For skill levels
> there is data for UK education I don't know about other market areas.
> FLOSS also asked skill level questions to gauge user concern in that
> area. There are some other data sources and surveys out there which may
> help.
> 
> 3.	On the good side I repeatedly heard the exact same comment "We were
> amazed how far it had come"
> 
> 4.	Number one reason for using KDE in business/schools is the lockdown
> 
> 5.	Most business "end users" don't know what a Gnome is. Some have the
> idea that Gnome is Red Hat and KDE is Novell's product but the level of
> confusion (and not-caring I guess) is high. If you ask them about
> compatibility they talk about the fact yast is different to
> system-config-foo not the desktop.
> 
> #5 is a problem because my original plan was to ask questions not
> dissimilar to the ones you suggested but the users seem not to know
> enough about it, or to answer questions like "how did you decide to use
> desktop X". My supervisor has fed me a book to read on that aspect...
>  
> Now I must emphasize I'm still filling in interviews with certain groups
> of user so there is a bias to the EU and to larger businesses in the
> people I have talked to so far. That may matter a great deal in terms of
> why things like lockdown come up high.
> 
> I'd be interested in comparing notes with anyone doing similar work.
> 
> Alan
> 
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