Re: Issuing a press release about GNOME 3

[Thilo Pfennig <tp pfennigsolutions de>]

Luis Villa wrote:
> In short, I think you're letting minor technical considerations (and
> perhaps perceived pressure from KDE?) set out an agenda, rather than
> making the user and improvements for the user set the agenda, and I
> think that is exactly backwards, screwing us up with users,
>   
I was thinking about the same but hesitated to write that as I am used
to having a non-majority view. I think one could also think about the
KDE disaster as that they did a simlar thing: 4.0 was not really the new
big thing for the users - but rather a quite stable new API. The
difference in GNOME  3.0 would be that although the motivation to do a
higher number comes from the ABI/API changes but it is expected to be
MUCH more stable than KDE 4.0.

But still thats one of the core problems that marketing follows function
and not the other way around or at least on the same level. So marketing
still is seen as a bunch of people who spread rhe word of new
functionalities and versions.

What GNOME should have is a good general strategy where it is heading.
Right now there are only some random "feature clusters" like the Online
Desktop or the mobility stuff. But thats not really an outlined idea or
vision.

Dact is that GNOME was never build from a users perspective but from a
developers perspective and also from the perspective of distributions.
If it should take the users into account the users have to have a role
in the development process - like having a users council which is
involved when new releases are planned. I think to expect developers and
distribution to takes the view of the user is maybe futile, because they
will have their own view and interests.

One could try to select a good mix of volunteers from different
backrounds  who are willing to test new features and give feedback - or
who say a word about ideas that are floating around. and they could be
heard by the Foundation board and maybe have one representative in that
board. It would then be good if they have a setup which allows them to
test new stuff without being technical experts.

I have followed the plans, discussions and actions in GNOME for years
and I think taht GNOME will never be for users as long as they are
outside of the process. I think such a small group of users could give
very valuable feedback, especially because it allows the developers to
specifically communicate with these individualy in ordet to solve common
problems. One thing that I think will be clear is that this would
introduce a broader view of GNOME. So what does GNOME do with users who
use software inside of GNOME and cant complete a task - but this task is
not part of core GNOME but of Abiword or GIMP? Well that would mean that
one has to take those applications into account also and help "outside"
projects to get connected as well.

So this would not mean that users decide anything - maybe it just helps
developers ot the developer community to get better results as that is
what they want. Or maybe not better but faster. Because the feedback
they get then they only would get one year later, when the stuff is has
arrived all distributions. But one year later means that the development
also is laggung one year behind, which again costs one year, so the
feedback for features that were written is getting to the developers two
years late, sometimes. Only users who update often give feedback more often.


Not sure how this could be implemented but I think is doable.

Regards,

Thilo

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