Re: Reboot: Strategic goals for GNOME

[John Williams <john williams lists gmail com>]

Please accept my apologies for butting in, if that's what I'm doing.  I have a thought that may be useful, but that, of course, is for you to judge.

GNOME needs a metric of "success".  Years ago it was "10x10", which is ridiculous today as it was when it was first proposed.  But it reveals an implicit assumption: "more users == success".  We need a firm statement from the foundation on this.  Is it possible that "easier to use and more productive than either Windows or MacOS" == success?

Simply put, is it "more is better", or "better is better"?

We know that the marketplace is littered with technically superior products that failed because the competition understood what it takes to "succeed": flood the channel and repeat simplistic messages via mass media ad nauseum.  This takes money, and GNOME does not have that.

GNOME will improve, in whatever direction, only by having talented developers writing code and talented writers writing documentation and promotional materials.  What will motivate those people?  Being part of a project that defines "success" as increasing it's market share from 0.001 to 002%?  Or being part of a project that aims to produce a DE that is a joy to use, and is arguably the best on the planet?

Thus endeth the rant.

Thanks for reading,

John.

On 3 March 2010 22:09, Dave Neary <dneary gnome org> wrote:

Hi,

 vision for GNOME 2.x did.Back in February, I posted the following - it
kind of got lost in the ensuing thread; but I think it's worth breaking
out into a new discussion (marketing list CCed). Like I say, I'm not
happy with the "vision" part of this (GNOME everywhere, and invisible)
because it doesn't offer a destination - it doesn't help anyone make
decisions about what's important - in the way that the "simple, usable,
beautiful" But perhaps it's the beginning of a vision that we can work on?

Juanjo Marin wrote:
> > Anyway, the original message of this thread
> > is that GNOME doesn't have long term goals.

Proposed short-to-mid-term goal: Make the GNOME platform exciting to
alpha-dog application developers & thought leaders.

Proposed community mantra: Beautiful computing freedom

Proposed project vision: Hidden in plain sight: Everyone using GNOME,
no-one noticing


The thing about a vision is that it easily makes it easier for you to
choose the right path at the fork in the road.

Think of the vision of the Palm Pilot as a great example - easy to
remember, and informs every decision: "Fits in a shirt pocket, syncs
seamlessly with PC, fast and easy to use, no more than $299".

What functionality is crucial? Seamless sync. Do we need to include a
certain component? What's its effect on the BOM? Can we still retail at
$299? Effect on size? Will it still fit in a shirt pocket? If not, no.

The hidden in plain sight vision has an element of that, but then it
doesn't provide any "use" vision, which is the biggest part of the
problem we have on the user interface.


Are we a middleware & platform project? Or do we still produce
compelling user interfaces? If so, for whom, in what circumstances?

We probably could have had moblin be "GNOME Netbook". We probably could
have had Maemo be "GNOME Smartphone". Or Sugar be "GNOME Education".

We probably could have had MeeGo be "GNOME Mobile", but our project
wasn't the obvious place to go, because we don't seem to know what we're
providing any more. And so we're losing stewardship (and control) of
these great GNOME-related projects to the Linux Foundation, or to Intel
& Nokia, or to distributions.

If we give GNOME a clear vision, and projects like Sugar, MeeGo, Maemo
and moblin recognise their goals in that vision, then the GNOME project
becomes a natural place to concentrate efforts again.

Cheers,
Dave.


--
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dneary gnome org
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