Re: Issuing a press release about GNOME 3

["Luis Villa" <luis tieguy org>]

On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 3:20 AM, Dave Neary <bolsh gnome org> wrote:
> Please don't put the technical justification "API & ABI break" front &
> center. Users don't care, and it will be a handicap the next time we
> want to bump major versions, even without an API break. Along the same
> lines, I'd remove the API/ABI FAQ.
>
> Better to be honest, and say "GNOME evolves, and it's important to
> signal every couple of years that we have important new features. GNOME
> 2.30 will not be the same as GNOME 2.22, and GNOME 2.22 is nothing like
> GNOME 2.0" - GNOME version numbers don't matter to developers - GTK+
> version numbers *might*, but they're a different kettle of fish.
>
> Version numbers matter to users, and to the press.

I hate to dump on well-meaning people like those of you on r-t, but
this 3.0 plan is, hands-down, a terrible idea, on a lot of levels, and
Dave's points here- why are we focusing on API? what are we signaling
to users?- begin to highlight why. The fact that the very first
sentence of http://live.gnome.org/GNOME3 is wrong: "GNOME 3 is needed
as GTK+ 3 will happen." is just not a good sign. (There are ways to
educate developers about API/ABI change besides major version numbers
of the desktop, so GTK3 need not force GNOME3.)

In short, I think you're letting minor technical considerations (and
perhaps perceived pressure from KDE?) set out an agenda, rather than
making the user and improvements for the user set the agenda, and I
think that is exactly backwards, screwing us up with users,
developers, and the media. As Blizzard said in his talk, users must
drive the agenda. Sitting back and saying 'we're just the platform' is
a recipe to become less relevant, not more relevant. I realize it is
frustrating to sit and wait for news user-focused agendas to
materialize, and I applaud the idea of driving longer-term planning
which might help drive creation of these agendas. But trying to force
it by arbitrarily letting an API/ABI change (which users know nothing
about and care nothing about) set an arbitrary date which may or may
not have any good ideas is a bad idea.

In more detail:

First, from a user perspective: how am I supposed to understand what
kind of change has gone on here? The change in major number is
supposed to indicate radical change. That is what version numbers do.
It is fair to say that GNOME 2.0 is very different from GNOME 3.0, but
(1) users aren't going to come to it from GNOME 2.0 unless they've
been living under a rock- they'll be coming to it from GNOME 2.2x, and
they'll wonder what the big deal is and (2) at core the user
experience is the same- same menus, same file manager. Users will
expect major change and improvement from a GNOME 3.0, and they'll be
confused and disappointed. With good reason. And never a good idea to
confuse and disappoint users. (The counter-argument, that we need to
go to 3.0 in order to show users that there has been change, is
broken. *Features* are what show users that there has been change. If
they haven't noticed the new features when we went from
2.0->2.2->...->2.28, why are they suddenly now going to notice these
features now? Because we slapped a new number on them? Seriously?)

Second, from a developer perspective: I understand the need to
indicate to developers that an API/ABI change has occurred, but if we
need to, that is why we have a platform/desktop split- change the
version number in the platform. Changing the desktop version without a
clear vision/agenda, *especially* combined with new API/ABI + porting,
is an invitation to architecture astronautics and unnecessary churn.
You're just begging for more tabs- hey, there is a new tab API! ;) 2.0
almost failed for this exact reason- before there was a clear vision
about doing usability/simplicity-centered design, the new version
number was a huge invitation to insert $VISION here, leading to all
kinds of crack. (This, IMHO, was KDE4's problem- no user-focused
vision, just technology churn.) A good 3.0 could be just the opposite-
find a vision, evangelize it, and say 'here is the deadline', and all
kinds of good stuff will happen. Instead it looks like the plan is to
squander that opportunity; if anything, by stepping away from apps and
letting a free-for-all happen there, it basically sounds like we're
abandoning user-focused developer vision altogether.

Finally, from a media perspective: the reason GNOME 2.0 was a success
in the Linux media, and the reason KDE 4.0 has been a failure, is that
GNOME 2.0 had a clear, persuasive story around it: simplification and
usability. No one in the media cared that we had a new toolkit, except
where it had specific features (mainly i18n) that had user benefits.
Writers ate up our usability story- they could tell their readers the
story we put out there, and it made sense to them. KDE 4 has no
coherent user-focused story, so this incredible opportunity to reach
out to the press has been squandered. Instead of the good press we got
around 2.0, they've got stories like 'is kde 4 a failure'. We had
unhappy users around 2.0, just like they did around 4.0, but the media
bought our spin on it- 'something you have to break some eggs to make
an omelette'- because the media understand our clear story around what
the omelette was. KDE has no idea what their omelette is, so the
broken eggs are getting all the press. Vista and OSX are, to a certain
extent, the same- OSX has incremental changes and incremental version
number changes. The media understands this, and so is willing to let
slide that there has been no major, revolutionary change at apple for
4-5 years now. OSX of 2008 is certainly a much improved experience
from X.0, just like 2.0 is different from 2.24 (though note that
they've repeatedly broken API without changing the 10 major version
#), but Apple has had the good sense not to raise media/user
expectations until there really is a radical change. Vista was
essentially a major version number change for minor, incremental
software changes, and Vista got *destroyed* in the press.

I'm sorry to be so negative, but this is a lousy idea and I think that
needs to be said. Do not repeat the mistakes of early 2.0 (before we
got our act together) and KDE 4.0. Be patient; just because Topaz is
unlikely to happen (I agree) is no reason to rush out and slap 3.0 on
something.

Luis