"Mission Statement"

["J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick narkinsky ml org>]

Okay...  I'm going to put on my asbestos underwear and venture to propose
a way to get a "Mission Statement" for the Gnome gui spec.  This is
intended to give us some guiding principals towards actually getting a
Gnome UI spec out. 

I would like to propose that we do something resembling a USENet BOF. 
Basically, the way this works is that people who are interested or have
something to say will present proposals for the guiding vision of the
GNOME UI spec.  There will be a period for comments on the various specs
during which: 

	a) They can be modified by their original authors.
	b) New spec proposals can be submitted.

Based on the feedback I get from this message, I will take the initiative
of:

	a) Setting a deadline for proposals, after which there will be 	
	   a 1 week cool off period, followed by a 1 week voting period.
	b) Tallying the votes.

Since I am kind of setting myself up as Caesar, I will refrain from
commenting on any of the specs or creating my own or voting.  If there is
interest in this proposal, then I will formalize things more -- I'm just
talking off the top of my head now.  If the group would prefer someone
else do this, that's fine; I don't need the work :)

To clarify: I am not looking for GUI proposals.  I'm looking for proposals
as to what the guiding principals of GUI design should be.  From there, we
can start working on the actual specs.

For example, a valid mission statement would be:

	I want everything to be as complicated as possible to confuse
	new users so that they don't try to use Linux and ask me lame
	questions on IRC.

>From that one, we would end up with the Athena Widget set and pie menus :)

The key to this is going to be this: everyone has got to agree to hold
their pet interface idea up under the light of the mission statement that
wins -- _especially_ if the didn't vote for it!

Let me know what you think.  

Patrick 

--
J. Patrick Narkinsky
patrick@narkinsky.ml.org

"It is so stupid of modern society to have given up believing in the
devil when he is the only explanation for it."  -- Ronald Knox