Re: Draining the Swamp: A Technical User's Experience

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

    No, I don't agree there. What we need is to have XFree/whatever the
    programs underneath need less options, and less configuration.

Some configuration is a matter of adapting one program to work with
its given (hardware or software) context.  That kind of configuring
can, at least in principle, be automatic, and handling this
automatically is ideal.  Perhaps this is the kind of configuration
that you have in mind.

However, much customization--perhaps most--is a matter of user choices
between multiple valid options.  The case that started this discussion
was of that kind: they had a system that was working just fine, but
they needed to switch to a different scan rate to work with the video
camera.

Assuming the monitor could indeed handle both scan rates, this is a
user preference choice.  It could not be decided automatically, even
in theory.  If the system supports two scan rates, it cannot decide
automatically which one is right.  So it system needs to provide a way
for the user to choose.  In the GNU system, the part where this would
naturally be done is GNOME.  Thus, GNOME ought to provide a full
spectrum of configuration facilities.

    As a sidenote, I'd say that GNOME is certainly not solely to be used on
    GNU systems,

I agree completely.  GNU maintainers usually accept changes to make
their packages support other sysems, and there is no reason why GNOME
should not do so.  However, no matter how many systems a GNU package
supports, its developers should not forget that it is a part of the
GNU system.

    Companies such as Sun, HP, Compaq and IBM have interest in GNOME and
    most of them committing money and people to the project. Most of them
    also want to see GNOME running on their non-GNU systems.

That is a good point--they do want this.  We can't expect them to
support GNOME if it isn't useful for them.  At the same time, we must
not let their interests dominate the project and become its goals.
Therefore, in accepting their contributions, we have to walk a fine
line.

Thus, we can legitimately decide to support HPUX as well as GNU and
GNU/Linux, in exchange for funds from HP which will enable GNOME to be
better and thus make GNU better.  But we must remember what is the end
and what are the means.  To walk this line successfully, we need to
keep the basic goals and priorities in mind.