Re: GNOME now

[Rovanion Luckey <rovanion luckey gmail com>]

2012/11/28 Jeremy Allison <jra google com>

On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 5:15 PM, Liam R E Quin <liam holoweb net> wrote:
> On Tue, 2012-11-27 at 17:06 -0800, Jeremy Allison wrote:

>> Is the GNU system for programmers only ? I doubt that is what you
>> mean.
>
> I'm sure it isn't.

I know :-), I'm just pointing out that's what it looked like.

If you knew well what Richard meant then why act as if you did not? It's hardly constructive for the conversation to beat down on all linguistic ambiguities of the debating opponent.

I'm really not worried about programmers desktops - GNU/Linux is so
widespread in the technical fields that this is a battle we are
already doing well in (not as well as I'd like, I'm still massively
irritated by how many of my programmer colleagues think it's
acceptable to use a freedom-hurting Apple laptop/desktop, but I
digress).

I myself think that you should worry about these programmers. That Gnome doesn't recognise them as important any more and makes it's design decisions accordingly is an of given reason for not using Gnome if not any of GNU/Linux any more.
 

The goal we should be aiming for is freedom for all computer
users, and like it or not, the majority of computer uses in the next 5
years will be on phones and tablets.

Are you sure that the majority of users in the next five years will be smart phone and tablet users?

Of course trying to enter the phone/tablet market a struggle worth taking, but giving up current PC market share to try and make it in the phone and tablet space would be a waste.

To pretend otherwise and focus on PC-style devices is trying to gain
traction in a shrinking market, which outside of business use will
soon be irrelevant.

 
Forbes [0] would like to think otherwise. Summarily the PC market isn't shrinking or even receding, it's just that the computers and PC software available today lasts much longer than it did ten years ago. Compare that to the average hardware renewal cycle of an iPhone user.

[0] http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2012/10/15/the-secret-behind-declining-pc-sales/