Re: Did GNOME go 1.0 too early?

["Jesse D . Sightler" <jsight pair com>]

On Wed, 03 Mar 1999 22:19:13 Daniel Burrows wrote:

>   I actually agree with you mostly.  Can someone 'official' please explain to
> me why it was released so early?  I can understand gnome-libs but why
> everything?

"Everything" was not released as 1.0.  Many Gnome apps are on completely different
release schedules (balsa, gwp, go, achtung, gedit, gIDE, etc).

>   gnome-libs is OK, but I've found gnome-core to be in need of a bit more
> bug-checking.  Panel tends to be somewhat flaky, bad applets take it down,
> gnome-pager needs..quite a bit more work..and it generally feels unfinished.
> I give it two weeks to a month to completion--probably 2 weeks given the recent
> rate of bugfixing around here.

If you're using Gnome-session, the panel will always recover quickly after a panel crash.
On my system, even this happens very rarely, though.  Also, Gnome-pager seems to work
quite fine to me.  Please explain what your problems with it are.

>   A computer user (We'll call him Jesse B) hears about this Gnome thing that's
> supposed to make Linux easy.  He hears that it's still in development and
> unstable but it'll be cool when it is finally released.  Finally, he hears that
> 1.0 is released!  Great!  He goes and downloads it, works through the install,
> and gets it up on his computer.  The panel has some visual quirks but he
> ignores them while he's trying all the nifty features.  A few seconds later, his
> file manager crashes because he clicked on a cancel button.  He tries again.
> This time fiddling with the properties of an applet in the panel causes
> everything to come to a crashing halt.  One last try fails when the control
> center explodes.  JB then goes and tells everyone "This Gnome thing is a
> horrible mess that will never fly.  Everyone (or at least, the Gnome target
> base) immediately forms a mental connection "Gnome==Buggy" and quietly files
> all further news about Gnome in a compartment marked "ignore", even after
> Gnome becomes rock-solid.

The market has proven time and time again that this does NOT happen.  If Linux had 
been judged by its early releases, people would have thought it a product only
for hackers.  And, you know, they still do.  But Gnome 1.0 has caused them
to reevaluate.  They will probably still find it only for hackers this time, too,
but this time for some slightly less sophisticated hackers.  :)  And you know,
they would still be right.  But it is definately a step in the right direction.
And perhaps more importantly, it gives application developers a stable target
to develop for, so that when Gnome 1.2 hits, it will not only be better than
ever, but have a larger collection of quality apps than ever as well.

In other words, this release isn't nearly so important for getting Gnome into
common use on the desktop as it is at getting a nice steady increase in the overall
usability and developability of the Linux environment.  And that is a goal
that it accomplishes very nicely.

>   All those bugs are bugs that I have observed and posted--often several times--
> often to the BTS and the mailing list.  Other than fixing them myself, I don't
> know what else I can do, and I don't have time to fix every little glitch
> someone adds to Gnome... :-(

Well, I can assure you that the developers are not sitting around wishing they
had stuff to do.  :)

>   Yes.  Why wasn't Gnome given another couple of weeks, even, to
> work out all the last kinks? 

Because another couple of weeks wouldn't have worked out "all" the kinks.

> 1.0 doesn't really have to be perfect but is
> it asking too much that it not have blatant bugs?

Please give examples of blatant bugs in Gnome-core or Gnome-libs, please.

>   Unfortunately, I'm not much of a developer.  I'm very interested, though, in
> hearing the _reasons_ for this release, given the number of blatant bugs
> here.  I will continue to use Gnome, but I am worried that 'normal users'
> (whatever that means) will be scared off by the instability.  (Of course,
> Windows doesn't scare them..but Gnome is not quite as stable as Windows in
> a lot of ways..and people who use Linux often care about stability...)

Agreed.  Gnome is neither as stable, nor as easy to use, nor as powerful as
Win95.  This will change with time.

-----------
Jesse D. Sightler
http://www3.pair.com/jsight/