Re: If this starts another flamewar please ignore: Why do you think Linus Torvalds made the statement against Gnome?

[Tristan Van Berkom <tvb gnome org>]

Yiannis wrote:
> For those not knowing the story... Linus Torvalds made the following
> statement and is posted on 13/12/05
> "This 'users are idiots, and are confused by functionality' mentality of
> Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use
> it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since
> reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do."
> "Please, just tell people to use KDE," Torvalds concluded.
>
> For the full story have a look on the following link:
> http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/4022
>
> Please make a note that I do not wish to start another flamewar.... In any
> case I am a Gtk developer... I just would like to listen to other
> opinions...

Heh,
   whether or not this is on topic, I'll participate :)

I'm a programmer through and through; I like gnome for it's
inner-workings and potential as a powerfull and stable software,
I am the furthest thing from a software user.

I like making decisions that will turn out well for everybody
in the long run (like respecting the HIG and enforcing
standards where appropriate) and usually those decisions
are detrimental to how strong a project looks in its initial release.

I think that typicly companies cut as many corners as possible,
sweep up the bugs under the rug, and start announcing all
the new "features", thank god you dont get away with that here
at gnome :)  (probably because gnome is not a "company"...)

Now I'm not saying or implying anything about KDE, I havent
read thier code or participated in thier discussions, I just
think that; if there are features that seem to be removed in
gnome, there's usually a sound reason for that.

And now I have to admit something that may sound strange:

when I first started coding/using computers, I ran enlightenment
and only enlightenment, the features were cool and pretty and
I couldnt get over that.
Now I wont even use blackbox anymore, too many damned features up
in my face and I'm not about to spend ~30min to find out how to
disable that damned toolbar, I usually run sawfish now in a "nude"
state, every workspace contains a fullscreen app
(1: terminals, 2: emacs, 3: thunderbird, 4: firefox, 5: xchat ...)

The only features I need are:
   o A way to disable any desktop "clickable" features
   o Configure keyboard shortcuts for workspace switching.

Anyway, this was a fun tuesday morning activity :)

Cheers all,
                         -Tristan

/me runs and ducks under a desk ;-D