Re: Comparative review between Gnome and KDE in UK PC-Mag

[Tom Gilbert <gilbertt tomgilbert freeserve co uk>]

* Elliot Lee (sopwith@redhat.com) [990730 21:47]:
> On 30 Jul 1999 15:50:46 -0400, Tom Gilbert
> <gilbertt@tomgilbert.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> >I just read a review in a UK PC magazine (the best selling mag)
> >comparing Gnome 1.0 and KDE 1.1.
> >
> >We didn't do terribly well.
> >
> >I have made the review text availble for non-UK developers and users
> >on http://www.tomgilbert.freeserve.co.uk
> >
> >I strongly suggest reading it, as it gives a useful indication of how
> >external reviewers experience the product.
> >
> >I have (with difficulty) refrained from adding my own comments, so the
> >text is verbatim. However, I have emailed the author, to inform him of
> >a couple of things he missed, a couple of things he got *wrong*, and
> >that the version he tested is woefully outdated.
> >
> >I suggest you all do the same. :-)
> 
> I'm all for accuracy. However, we need to read this objectively, trying to
> think "Is there some way I could possibly make GNOME even slightly closer
> to the expectation of the reviewers?", and "How can we continue to improve
> on the things we did well on?"
> 
> For example, working to expand DnD support even more would be a good
> thing, as would be working on the missing documentation, or whatever
> strikes your fancy :)
> 
> Basically, we have to avoid having the same response to this as some
> people had to Mindcraft ("it's biased", "it's irrelevant", when it was
> showing problems in a specific area).
> -- Elliot

Absolutely. This is why I made it available.

We make comments such as "gmc should not view html pages", and rightly
so, but a reviewer says "hmmm, they're file manager cannot view html,
therefore it is not advanced".

We should definitely learn from this. Documentation improvements are
very important, getting publicity for the *latest* releases, as the
Redhat 6.0 release was buggy as hell (sorry), and make things clearer
to new users. Things like not realising that mouse-focus behaviour is
a wm setting and can be *changed* (as the reviewer did) is something
that should not count against us in a review, or in the experience of
a new user.

Tom.
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