Re: Random thought...

["Dan \"Effugas\" Kaminsky" <effugas best com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Vogt <tom@lemuria.org>
To: gnome-gui-list@gnome.org <gnome-gui-list@gnome.org>
Date: Saturday, August 15, 1998 12:52 AM
Subject: Re: Random thought...


>I doubt sun's position is extreme. come on, this is pretty straightforward.
>it's a SPECIFIC criticism to a very specific point. and I do agree 100%
with
>sun that just because some other ui does something it's way, gnome is not
>oblieged to copy that.
>
>to me - and please, sun, correct me if I'm wrong - what he was saying is
>that gnome needs to be consistent with ITSELF, not with other stuff.


Gimme a break.  I was arguing that Quit in the File menu is a good thing
because it's consistent everywhere, and the guy didn't want to insult my
intelligence with the counterargument.

GNOME needs to be consistent with itself.  It also needs to be different
when it will provide a tangible benefit to users.

>> No, no, no.
>>
>> GNOME needs a *STANDARD WM*.  I assume this is going to be E.
>
>I like E. just a safeguard so you don't assume I say this because of my wm
>preferences:
>
>the day gnome ships with a standard wm will be the day it has to do without
>my support. period.


You have a problem, Tom.  Guess who works for Redhat.

But, guess what:  The day GNOME doesn't allow other WMs to easily take
advantage of standard GNOME features, I'm walking out right next to you ;-)
So our perspectives aren't as far off as you might think.

>> There needs
>> to be a starting point from which other WMs can grow.  I *want* other WMs
to
>> support GNOME, but they need to do it in a manner that extends, not
>> replaces.
>
>icewm is already gnome compliant and there are projects to make fvwm and
>afterstep as well.


damnit, respond to what I was arguing...I say "WMs need to extend, not
replace", you say "icewm is gnome compliant".   Excuse me if I see this as a
non sequitor?

Anyway, Tom, whatever's called GNOME Compliant now is totally different from
whereever we're gonna be when the style guide is done.

>> Docks, wharfs, panels, these are the fruits of redundancy.  I
>> don't want to see "only works with Gnomemaker" or "only supported by
>> AfterGnome".  This is just more of the same from X.  We need a standard,
in
>> fact, it's a null issue--whatever ships with Redhat 6 *will* be standard.
>
>this is simply not true. redhat has a huge audience, but e.g. over here in
>europe, suse is equally strong.


Thank you for ignoring everything but the last sentence.  Anyway, didn't
SUSE say it was going to standardize on GNOME?  I may be off.

>
>> Or do you propose we do what happened to me on my first day of using
>> unix--"What shell would you like to use?  csh or bash?"  Me:  "What are
>> they?"
>
>don't try to put dumbness in my mouth, please. of course it's gotta be easy
>and highly visual and all - that's a problem of the presentation. can we
>talk about presentation AFTER clearing the underlying basics?


Now I'm real confused.  We agree it's real dumb to throw random choices at
the user.  Great.  Wonderful.

Underlying basics--I'm saying that other WMs need to be growths from the
original, taking as much as is relevant from the original code.  Tom, does
it make sense to have each WM handle wharfs/docks/panels in a different
manner?  Doesn't it make it MUCH MUCH MUCH harder for new WMs to come on the
scene without a standard method of, say, keeping the file launch sets
synchronized between each manager?  Don't argue about standards, just give
me a yes or no:  Shouldn't the data that is consistent between window
manager setups be consisistently accessed by window managers?  Wouldn't this
make the user fear switching WMs *less*?

>just as a thought - just a proof of concept that it's possible - the
install
>could have a point where it asks "do you want to choose from various
>desktops or do you want me to install a default (wm name) ?". afterwards it
>would display a few screenshots and a few (about 3) lines of text showing
>and explaining the different options.
>
>I know a bunch of users who would go "wow! hey, wait - all this is
possible?
>geez, wow." and even before they did a single thing, Linux would already be
>liked.


Tom, this would confuse the living hell out of new users, and would make
tech support for these new users an expensive nightmare.  Granted--I have a
proposal in the wings that *should* make tech support, in general,
significantly easier.  But, oops, that'll probably step on a few toes too.

Lemme explain why I'm here, Tom.  I'm the pissed off user with enough of a
clue to describe what I want.  I'm sick and tired of excuses, of snivels, of
"its not my faults" that I get with Windows, day in, day out.  I want Linux
to be as strong of a Client OS as it is a Server OS, and I DON'T want to see
it co-opted by a non-free component.  However, if there's one thing that KDE
has shown, it's that Linux can be beautiful, and it can be usable by average
users.

I want to do better, though.  KDE is, for all of its impressiveness, too
afraid to step out, to make a feature that Windows 95 doesn't have, because
they think users won't recognize it.  That's their weakness and our
strength.  So I hunker down and write proposals for what I think will
enslickify(tm) the interface.  I'm a realist, and I know that whatever I
suggest may very well be ignored, but I also know that if there's ever going
to be a time to do the suggesting, it's *now*, before Microsoft does its
full court press on Linux, before KDE manages to take over(which it would
have by now if GNOME hadn't shown up--for all the "wonder" of the other WMs,
KDE blows 'em out of the water for ease of use--so much for the greatness of
the "divided interface" model), now is the time.

Someone called me a fearmongerer.  I'm just a realist, with maybe the
smallest touch of idealism that says "maybe I can help make things better,
but if I can't, at least I tried."