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| Flexibility - the Core of Open Source |
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Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 03:28 PM EST
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There is a recent thread on OSDL's Desktop Architects mailing list that I think is interesting enough, I wanted to highlight it for you, in case you hadn't seen it. Linus' comments, part of which were also posted by Matt Asay on Infoworld, stand on their own, but the general topic is design choice. What matters most? Design focus or user configurability? Can you have both?
Specifically, the thread begins with a thought about the printing dialogue in Gnome, complaining it doesn't present the user with all possible options. The Gnome usability team had expressed that there were too many options and that listing them all is only confusing to users: Frederic told that the options from the PPD file are intentionally mot
listed in the printing dialog, the usability team of GNOME was against
listing these options. They clutter the dialog and can be more confusing
than useful to the user.
But on the other side the user wants to make use of the full
functionality of his printer. He has payed for it. The poster then makes some suggestions to try to make the dialogue all-inclusive, while organized so as not to confuse. Linus responds: I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE.
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. Specifically, Linus wants to be able to use his mouse a certain way, and Gnome won't let him, although KDE will. It won't surprise you to learn that this elicited some replies. Some Gnome developers expressed that Gnome puts having things work out of the box as a higher priority than providing all possible options. Linus responds that the real issue isn't clutter but capability. If you solve the clutter problem by removing options, it strikes at the heart of what makes Open Source better -- flexibility. Flexibility is the core of open source, Linus says. It's not a corporate monoculture, as he puts it, because it's developed by a broad collection of people from different backgrounds who get together and work together, without preset top-down design decisions or what he calls corporate mind wash. It's customizable. That is its strength, what makes it better. Whatever you want to be able to do, no matter how quirky, you can do it.
Here's part of one comment in the thread Linus responded to: I suspect that what you see as a raging hatred for user configuration is instead just a symptom of what we consider important in GNOME. We are willing to prioritize "working well out of the box" and "consistent and easy to use" over user configuration. So that particular set of features just never bubbles up to the top. As near as I can tell it just is a question of priorities.
Linus replies: *So the source being open is - on average - not important to people directly.
Even major developers only work on a small part of the whole stack at a time,
they don't go around changing all the programs they use to suit them. *
*But _indirectly_, the thing that open source really excels at, is the
flexibility it offers thanks to having lots of users, and lots of users whose
needs get _heard_. THAT is the core of open source. You've got different kinds
of people that get attached to a project. It's _not_ a corporate mono-culture,
because people from different backgrounds can get together and work on it
_without_ going through the corporate mind-wash.*
And to me, gnome is killing itself as an open source project, because it ends up
dismissing exactly that thing. *Having strict UI rules ("The HID says
so-and-so") that are really a religion that you're not allowed to question. The
whole notion that things are supposed to be done just one way is antithetical to
what makes open source successful in the first place.*
I think the KDE development process has been a lot more "lively", and I think a
_lot_ of the reason for that has been that they haven't allowed the "interface
nazi" kind of stifling of what people feel they need to do. Read the recent
KDE-3.5 release announcement with the "visual guide to new features", and you
can _feel_ the energy. Sure, they have three different kinds of desktop
choosers. So what? You don't have to use them. But the capabilities are there if
you want to.
And I think that's important. It's important, because that developer energy, in
the end, is what get things done. And as a side effect, you will automatically
end up with a system that understands that defaults may be good, but that
different people have different needs and views. Because you had a very diverse
group of people that worked on it.
So developers are more energized, and I think users are also automatically
happier. They may not even realize why, but I believe it's to a large part
because their needs are taken care of - not necessarily because they ask for it,
but because the developers themselves are more varied and thus tends to have
more different needs, and often took care of the different
needs of the user base to some degree automatically.
This, btw, is also why a "enterprise desktop" should never be allowed to drive
development. It is, by definition, boring and same-old, same-old.
And if you don't see the parallels with "enterprise UNIX" and "Linux" here, I
think you're blind. The thing is, Linux (the kernel) got better than just about
any enterprise Unix kernel _not_ by trying to develop itself for the enterprise,
but by allowing and encouraging different kinds of people to all scratch their
own itch.
*Yeah, the whole development process is a bit more chaotic, and maybe a bit more
"cluttered" and even scary, but the end result is BETTER. And yes, Linux (the
kernel) has a million drivers that the "serious guys" don't care for. But that
wild and crazy thing is exactly what made Linux a success in the first place.* You can see the immediate response by Havoc Pennington, disagreeing with Linus in part, here, followed by more from Linus: The fact is, developers don't know what their users are going to need.
That's a very fundamental issue in any software engineering. The other,
almost as fundamental issue, is that asking users is usually not very
productive either, because (a) different users will give you different
answers and (b) users often don't even know.
So when you ask "which flexibilities do you consider important", you're
pretty much BY DEFINITION asking for something senseless. It's akin to
asking how many angels dance on the head of a pin.
But the fact that users and developers don't know does NOT mean that
customization is bad. Quite the reverse. It means that defaults make
sense, but since you don't know what they'll be doing, you should always
strive to have ways to let _them_ make the choice when they have some
reason the default doesn't agree with them.
Those users may not know before-hand (which is why asking them is
pointless), but people actually _like_ twiddling around, changing fonts
and personalizing their machine. To round out the conversation, here's Havoc again: To me GNOME (and the Linux desktop in general)
is stuck in an untenable intermediate position; it's trying to make
that group [engineers] happy, and enterprise purchasers, and also the proverbial
"home user." And while in theory you could do that, in practice I
think it's nuts, because resources are finite, developer cultures can
only prioritize so many things, etc. A design focus is necessary and
so are hard choices. Another way to think about it is that
commoditization and innovation are very difficult to pursue at the
same time with the same organization(s). Here's my input, for what it's worth, as one home user: you don't know me, so you don't know what I like to do with my computer, so please don't choose for me. I probably don't know in advance either, so just develop everything you can think of and have time to code, and I'll experiment. By that I mean, choose a default if you wish, but not without giving me a chance to alter even that, and don't remove any choices from the menu, please. Are there too many choices in GNU/Linux? Can there be too many choices? Not if the one you want is the one that is left out. On a related theme, sometimes folks assert that what GNU/Linux needs to really make it on the desktop is to decide on one desktop version, one text editor, one browser, etc., so users, particularly enterprise users, will be at ease. I don't care if others want to do that, as long as I don't have to. What I love is all the choice. I tend to use KDE, personally, but I use Gnome stuff too, and I typically install them both. I love Evolution, guys, and I don't think anyone else can hold a candle to it. I wouldn't be interested in any distribution that didn't offer me both KDE and Gnome. And I can't live without blackbox. When Mandrake, now Mandriva, left it out of the install options in one upgrade, after having offered it before, I was so distressed, it finally forced me to learn how to install applications without a GUI. It turned out to be easier than the GUI, once you take the time to learn how, and it started me down a path that taught me eventually that GUIs are just what some developer thinks you'll be needing, as opposed to all that the computer or application can really do, but that's another story. It's related, though, to our theme, if you think about it. What is it that I love so much about blackbox? Here's the explanation from the SourceForge page describing what is special about blackbox: It's very simplistic; some might even perceive it as ascetical or downright barren. When migrating from an environment filled with images, eye-candy and gadgets, the typical Blackbox desktop can shock a new user due to the sheer amount of empty space. It's called screen estate and some people value it and want as much of it as possible. It doesn't have to be this way - you can add most of the tools and gadgets that you have in other environments.
Blackbox is very minimalist in its approach as a window manager. It manages windows, period. It doesn't do desktop icons and shortcuts, keyboard handling, flashy menus, tools and gadgets. All of these are available through 3rd-party tools and add-ons, which you can add to your environment as you please. It's just not Blackbox's job to provide them.
Blackbox is very flexible! By sticking to the basics, but implementing common standards, it allows scores of 3rd-party tools to be used to expand its default functionality. You can use Blackbox as the foundation and create any kind of desktop you can imagine!
No taskbar. Once you iconify (or minimize) a window, it's completely hidden off the desktop. You can retrieve it from a desktop context menu. Window shading (showing just the window bar) and multiple virtual desktops are provided as alternative ways of clearing up the desktop. (Note: taskbars can also be added, starting with version 0.70, through 3rd-party tools.) Notice that implementing common standards is what makes it possible for third-party tools to build on the common foundation. Yoo hoo, Massachusetts. Don't let anyone tell you proprietary extensions don't matter. When I first discovered blackbox, I told a friend that it was like seeing my first snowfall. Just magical. And mind-altering. Having been accustomed to Windows, at first I couldn't believe that I could have almost nothing on my screen. No crayon colors. No popups. No helpful anything, just an elegant, almost empty screen, that did what I asked it to do and not one thing more. It''s perfect for days when I am on sensory overload. But I can design whatever I want, excluding whatever features I hate about desktop design. I love having the choice and being able to do what I personally like. Even my Mac is boring in comparison, beautiful as it is. On the other hand, if I set up a Linux box for a friend or relative, I recognize that some folks do better with less. I would remove a lot of typicial options (my mom doesn't need any servers, for example, and if she ever needs MySQL, I'll know the end is nigh), because when you're just wanting to do email and surf, maybe write a letter, you don't need 16,000 software applications. Anyway, Bruce Schneier recommended once, I read, that you only install what you are sure you actually will use, to minimize security issues. That made me think about Ubuntu's philosophy, including that it should 'Just Work' out of the box. Here is the Ubuntu way: When you finish your Ubuntu installation your system is immediately usable. You have a full set of business productivity applications, internet applications, drawing and graphics applications, and games. That one CD gives you a very good desktop environment out of the box, with many applications for business, home and personal computer users installed by default. There are thousands of additional pieces of software that are just a few clicks away, but we've done the hard work to get the basics in place easily and effectively. What they mean by that is that unlike most default GNU/Linux distros, Ubuntu has preselected only one browser, Firefox, one office suite, OpenOffice.org, one email-calendar client, Evoluton, etc. In the GNU/Linux world, that's mighty lean. Ubuntu installs the default system -- the installation fits on only one CD -- with an operating system and 1,000 software applications they've selected out of 1,300 fully supported applications Ubuntu offers, but it also makes 16,000 available in four categories if you decide you want to try them, and of course there's always more you can find for yourself on the Internet. That's kind of the best of both. But the 1,000 default applications are still more than my mom would ever use. She doesn't need NTP or Samba for Windows file sharing, for example, unless she is leading a double life. A basic installation with options is fine. But the OSDL Desktop Architects discussion takes it one step further, as I understand it. What if you establish design "rules" for developers, so that the end result limits what users can do in the cause of simplicity and ease of use? I resonate to what Linus had to say, as an end user, and perhaps you do too. He's talking from a developer point of view, but the discussion is relevant to all of us, because if choice is removed by developers for our "benefit", it has the potential to alter what GNU/Linux is all about, and that is flexibility and choice. On the other hand, if I owned a business, the last thing I'd want my employees to have it total flexibility and choice. There is a difference between a business user and a home user, in that sense.
By the way, I not only like having multiple text editors, I actually use them. Well, three of them, anyway, regularly. And I like trying them all. Now, nobody actually needs more than one. Emacs, for example, does everything but your laundry. It probably does that too, if I just knew how to make it happen. But it's fun to try different editors, and there are times when you want a simpler text editor. Sometimes one is better at a certain task, or suits your way of working. Sometimes, as a female, I want to look at something prettier. Sometimes I want one I can figure out quickly. Sometimes I'm just sick of looking at the same thing. I'm a mood dresser, and I change my desktop regularly for the same reason. It's easy in GNU/Linux, where you can set a different look for as many desktops as you please, and just switch to whatever you feel like that day. It's kind of like taking a car for a test drive. You may not buy the car, but it's fun to whirl around in it a while. If someone preselects my options and decides for me that I should have only one text editor then you spoil my fun. It's like deciding that there will be no more stick shifts. You can only have automatic. Some people prefer stick shifts, because of the greater control. Why not let people choose what they want? And that is absolutely what I love about GNU/Linux, choice, that I can enjoy playing with my computer and making it do things the way I personally want or need. I'd also like to say that having source code is valuable to end users even if they never change it. It's valuable for security reasons to be able to look at things, even if you don't understand what you are looking at. Let me explain. When I was in Windows, back when I was in an office setting, and I suspected malware, I'd take a computer that wasn't infected and compare file contents with an identical computer that was suspect, using Knoppix and Emacs to compare and remove any odd bits. It was a primitive system I just thought up myself, and you are all free to make fun of me, but the truth is, it usually worked. It did also sometimes mess things up thoroughly, before I learned to research before I removed things. Reinstalling Windows over and over from scratch definitely inspires caution before you alter anything in Windows. Primitive, yes. But, as it turned out, useful too. My point is this. I couldn't read the code, but I could eyeball, compare, and see things that looked different. And most of the time, that solved the problem. It also made me feel more comfortable with computers. I no longer saw it as a black box doing God knows what. It was apparent from looking around, and being able to look around, that it was just software and hardware that fellow humans had designed to do certain tasks. It may sound silly, but understanding that is what made computers fun for me, at last, whereas I hated them before. And look at Geeklog. It is licensed under the GPL, which is one important reason why Mathfox and I picked it. When we started using it, it didn't do some things we eventually decided we wanted Groklaw to do. So we (the royal we here) coded it to do what we wanted. One example is News Picks (stevem coded that functionality). After he finished, he gave it to Geeklog, so anyone wanting to do a news collection on their Geeklog site could. Now, I can't code, but I knew someone who could, so I was able to make my website do what I wanted. I wasn't locked in to preset choices made by someone else who can't possibly know what I might want. Source code means I can do whatever quirky thing I want. How can that be anything but positive? Having access to source code is a fundamental freedom that sets you free from other people making your choices for you. So, I hope you guys can work this out, so we don't have to choose design focus or flexibility. If you can't, while I value ease of use, I don't want to give up flexibility and choice to get it. I guess I want to be offered both: a simple default I can elect, and unlimited choices. As architect Mies Van Der Rohe said once about design, God is in the details.
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| Authored by: free980211 on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 03:36 PM EST |
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| Authored by: ile on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 03:49 PM EST |
| Let me start: Mies van der Rohe
(see wikipedia)
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| Authored by: Latesigner on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 04:01 PM EST |
It's true that most users won't need "all possible" options but I've
really little use for the "It just confuses them" argument.
Just how much of a problem is it to install the most used options by default and
put the instructions for the rest in another folder ( call is Customized :) ) so
that anyone who wants to make changes can?
---
The only way to have an "ownership" society is to make slaves of the rest of us.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 04:13 PM EST |
... and "Advanced" button, that brings up another dialog with the rest
of the features.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tknarr on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 04:15 PM EST |
I have to agree more with Linus than the GNOME guys. Simplicity and "don't
confuse the user" vs. configurability and "expose all the options" isn't an
exclusive-or situation. A good system should do both. Debian's
package-configuration system is an example. One of the first things it asks is
what level of configurability you're comfortable with. On the low end, it'll
only ask the really important questions and make decisions for you about the
details. On the high end, it'll let you configure every little picky aspect of
the packages. Even Windows does it to a degree: normal users can stick to the
control panel and other GUI options screens, while expert users can pull up the
group policy editor and tweak things in a lot more detail. A good interface
should provide the basics up-front, while still allowing access to the gory
details for those who have to tweak things. Ideally it should allow third-party
tools access to the configuration so other people can create tools to deal with
specific configuration tasks if the interface team can't or doesn't want
to.
If the capability and configurability are there, it's usually
possible to put a simpler shell around it by assuming defaults or creating
"profiles" that provide sets of stock answers to a wide set of options. When the
configurability isn't there, though, it's a lot harder to add it. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 04:18 PM EST |
Removing working features _is_ bad design. The proper way to do this IMO (and,
yes, I am an experienced software developer), is simply to have something like
an "Advanced" check button. In the default state, only the basic
options are show, but when the "advanced" button is activated, all of
the options are shown.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 04:26 PM EST |
You've hit at the core of the issue: in the end, it's all about what's
productive
for you, and only you, and if others like it, all the better. UI is a personal
experience. Things work and chime together, or to lesser and lesser degrees,
do not.
Behind gnome is an inflexible framework; you're not supposed to fool with it,
rather build on it. This is philosophically different than the comparative chaos
of KDE, and blackbox is still another metaphor. Open form breeds more open
functionality, at the cost of resources, wasted efforts, and personalization
depth. Personalization depth can be bad, because it wastes time building
form, rather than allowing function rapidly.
As Campbell would say, the least entropy occurs when the speaker knows the
most about the listener; ergo, user observation makes better programs and
software. Microsoft has tried this lesson, and made early wins (excuse the
pun). Apple kept it simple, and captured imaginations with function. KDE and
its energetic anarchy are youthful and yet productive. Time will tell.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 04:29 PM EST |
Just a thought...but how about a compromise?
I suggest that the GNOME folks build their screens as they'd like, with the
options that will be used by most people.
THEN (here's the kicker) they place the less-common choices on either
A) Separate tabs, or
B) ONE separate tab with a button to bring up a 'dialog customization' window.
The most prominent button on this would be <<RESTORE DEFAULTS>>.
Mebbe I'm dreamin', but doesn't this stake out a middle ground?
Cheers to All!
Doug Hayden[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: John_Doe#1 on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 04:33 PM EST |
| And I believe his comments only serve to create division among the Linux
community at a time when we need unity more than ever.
I cannot support KDE
considering the QT libraries on which it is based is only made "free" at
TrollTech's discretion contingent upon every new release... that's been
TrollTech's history. And let's not forget one of TrollTech's board members and
stock holder was Ralph Yarro, it took TrollTech much too long to rectify that
problem.
Gnome has a lot of cool features like HAL for nautilus and other
things that people use and don't even give a second thought to.
If Linus
doesn't like Gnome maybe he should follow his own advice and submit a patch. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Tezzer on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 04:47 PM EST |
I think I agree with just about everything everyone else says. WOW is that
possible :)
One thing that attracted me to Linux was the fact that (without great skill) I
could put together a system that did very much what *I* wanted. The result is
very much like the old Acorn GUI but with modern 'knobs' added. I very much
doubt that combination would suit many others.
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Kandor[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 05:02 PM EST |
Options are good. But there has to be a limit. A kernel with 40.000 config
options is no longer configurable or maintainable.
Same for a desktop, if your desktop has 100.000 options, the code will be an
unmaintainable mess and testing entirely impossible, let alone that it'll be
HUGE in memory.
On the other hand, no options at all is equally bad. People are different after
all. Ford did it in the 30's... you could get any color car as long as it was
black. People have different tastes, a large portion of us drives in a non-black
car today.
There needs to be a reasonable balance about what should be an option and which
bits should just be the way they are. In the car paradigm: you can buy cards in
3 dozen colors, but not in 5000+ colors. If Ford or any of the others would
offer 5000 colors, all cars would be more expensive, so much more expensive that
most of us wouldn't be willing to pay that for the 30 -> 5000 difference.
Also to some degree the ultimate choice is to pick an alternative project, like
an alternative editor or desktop environment. It'd be madness to make VI so
configurable that you could make it behave 100% like emacs after all. (although
sometimes the vim project seems to do a good try ;). VI is VI, Emacs is Emacs.
There are deisgn and interface choices in each, and making all of those options
is silly.... yet both vi and emacs are configurable on mid level details within
their own major design choices.
Getting this right is HARD. One way of finding out what choices people care
about is taking them away and see how much protest there is. Asking people isn't
really useful.
Another option would be a massive "automatic poll" where the software
would occasionally report back to some server what the settings are, so that
options that almost nobody changes can be removed in favor of others. But the
privacy implications of this are too scary for words.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 05:07 PM EST |
PJ -
With respect (to both you and Linus), Linus's comments are really mistaken. He
is the top 1% of 1% of Linux users. If he wants options, by all means, he can
have them. If you want options, by all means, take
them.<br><br>But, to castigate gnome for deciding on default
positions, and then hiding the options from users, is just asinine. Gnome has
made design philosophy decisions based on the assumption that "Aunt
Tillie" users neither want, nor need most of the options they could be
given. Indeed, it gives them the capability of accidentally rendering things
unworkable. You and Linus are simply not the target for Gnome. Common users
and the desktop are (e.g., see Novell's involvement).<br><br>I have
done lots of Windows consulting, and for years people have complained about
Clippy in MS Office. And for years people have installed him, not knowing that
they could remove Office Assistant. They even put up with him, not
understanding that it involves a check box on in Options...<br><br>I
use this as an example to demonstrate that a user who does not know what (s)he
is doing, is apt to do nothing. Gnome is attempting to keep things simple, not
perfectly full-featured.<br><br>Flexibility is OSS's greatest
strength, but it is also its greatest weakness. If you try to be everything to
everyone, you wind up being <i>able</i> to do things, but generally
speaking, doing (or not doing) them requires more work and knowledge than
deciding what it is your project is going to do, and then doing only
that.<br><br>dave (when logged-in, loftis)<br>dave (can be
mailed at) lofdev (period) com.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 05:18 PM EST |
I've been a SWE for nearly 20 years, so I certainly know what it's like to
develop for the corporate world. And I also know what it's like to develop SW
for myself, and I know that developing for myself is always far more
satisfying.
I've also been a musician (for even longer). I've always heard one piece of
wisdom thrown around in music circles (and I suspect it applies to any artistic
endeavor, including SW development; which I most certainly do consider to be a
creative pursuit in large part).
That piece of wisdom is: "play/write for yourself first".
Although on its surface that may sound selfish, it really isn't. What it really
speaks to is making the most of your artistic output, which in turn benefits
your audience as well.
If you follow your "muse" and let your artistic instincts control what
you do... if you do things that feel satisfying to *you*, you will produce your
best work.
If instead you allow yourself to be limited by external concerns, such as
commercial requirements or even societal norms, you will produce something which
is a compromise.
Compromise is never sublime.
I think this folds very nicely into OSS development, where "scratching your
itch" is often the driving force: i.e. "writing for yourself
first".
If you put artificial limitations on what developers can do, as Gnome has
apparently done, you will produce something which is a compromise.
I'll stop short of offering any strong opinions about Gnome because I have
little recent experience with it. All I'll say is that when I first starting
using Linux a couple of years ago I tried Gnome and I tried KDE and I stuck with
KDE. I found it to be a much richer environment in every way with many more
options all around. I can't say whether that has changed. From the recent
discussions though, it sounds like it hasn't. Assuming this is the case, my
advice to the Gnome team would be to drop the limiting forces: stop writing for
other people. Write for yourselves.
~ray
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 05:19 PM EST |
and it is not a case supplying a patch, it is a question of a restrictive design
philosphy.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Language... - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 05:26 PM EST
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| Authored by: Mecha on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 05:19 PM EST |
Now it must be said that I don't use Gnome, nor do I install it. I use KDE.
However, I disagree with Linus about providing full functionality. I think he
forgets that some users don't really care to know anything, they just want it
working. That is why we have choice (more than just KDE and Gnome). Gnome is
great for introducing new users (not IT pro's) to linux. Most of the people who
actually want full functionality are smart enough to install KDE anyways. Not
that I think Gnome users are idiots, They just can't care less about using the
full functionality of things like printers. Most of them would just like to hit
print and have it print.
---
** This is my signature and I happen to like it **[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 05:28 PM EST |
Having both KDE and Gnome, amongst many others, is one of the reasons why Linux
isn't excepted as a mainstream desktop OS.
Basically the only purpose for a GUI is:easy access to apps and settings. What
else?, o yah Eye-Candy too, something MS and Mac designers are well aware of.
I find the effort in the developement of so many GUI's is a waste of valuable
resources, which boils down to in a form of forking, since certain apps by
default will not run on all offerings.
Linux can only be a serious competitor, if there is a uniform base on which
applications can be build.
If hard core geeks want to do tweeking or customization, they still have that
freedom
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 05:40 PM EST |
Strange that you should quote Mies van der Rohe. Architecture is one of the
areas where you have to pick one design, period. That means getting things
right.
I am an Emacs developer, and we have a lot of contention getting stuff ready for
the next release. There are often long discussions about the defaults for some
options.
And more often than not, where one can't decide what the best setting would be,
the answer is "neither": the user gets the choice between two inferior
solutions, and the question is best solved by an approach combining the best
points of the available options.
All too often, unsatisfactory behavior is justified by giving the user the
choice between different kinds of unsatisfactory behavior.
Of course, properly obliterating a choice is much harder than merely removing
it.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: geoff lane on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 05:59 PM EST |
| I've used Gnome for some years and have come to the conclusion that it is
broken-by-design and the antithesis of good Unix application design.
Gnome,
for reasons of compatibility, seems to copy the worst design flaws of Windows
without any compensating benefits.
Take something very basic. In Windows, if
you click in a window, that window moves to the top of the stack. For me, nine
times out of ten, that is the wrong behaviour. If a window is half hidden, that
is where I want it to be. Gnome copies this broken behaviour but doesn't
provide a method of changing it to a more reasonable click-on-boarder to raise
(there are unofficial patches that provide such functionality but that is not
the point.)
Gnome creates it's own world. If you look on FreshMeat and
SourceForge you can find many applications designed to work only with the
resources available in a Gnome installation. This is "open" only in the sense
that someone who builds their own jail and locks themselves in is
"free".
Unix is supposed to be a place where processes can cooperate to
create high level facilities. Gnome and other desktops create their own closed
worlds where some data is hidden away from utilities such as find and grep.
This is the introspective Windows view of the world, something I moved to Unix
to avoid.
Free and open must include the user, even when the user is not an
expert. Todays beginner is tomorrows expert. Training wheels can be removed
from a bike, but there is no "expert" mode for Gnome.
I have yet to find a
"desktop" that I am happy with. All to often I find that a desktop is nice to
use up to the point where you want to alter menus, replace editors and create
functionality not provided by the base application.
The matter of editors is
especially annoying. Far too often changing the default editor is difficult or
impossible (or worse possible only via undocumented changes to a "registry"
equivalent.) Why do I have to put up with a different editor in the email
application to the one I normally use?
It's my data, my computer, who are you to
tell me that I can't use my prefered editor?
Rant over.
---
I'm
not a Windows user, consequently I'm not
afraid of receiving email from total strangers.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Broken by design - Authored by: sk43 on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 06:30 PM EST
- Broken by design - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 07:41 PM EST
- Broken by design - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 06:51 PM EST
- wrong fix - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 07:58 PM EST
- wrong fix - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 09:22 PM EST
- Broken by design - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 10:20 PM EST
- To be fair - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 11:27 PM EST
| |
| Authored by: mrcreosote on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 06:03 PM EST |
The attitude of the Gnome developers reminds me of the 'birth' sketch from the
start of Monty Python's 'The Meaning of Life' - Mrs Moore is in the 'Foetus
Frightening Room', about to give birth....
MRS. MOORE: What do I do?
DOCTOR SPENSER: Mhm. Yes?
MRS. MOORE: What do I do?
DOCTOR SPENSER: Nothing, dear. You're not qualified!
OBSTETRICIAN: Leave it to us!
---
----------
mrcreosote[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Fredric on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 06:06 PM EST |
| And all other desktops out there.
If you, like Linus, don't like one for one
reason or another choose another. That's the
real strength of open
source.
If Gnome and KDE had identical development
philosophies they would
be redundant but the have not so
they are not. Beautiful.
Eventually some
of them may "loose" but the uses are winners
no matter what. Thats very much
like capitalism, or Darwinism
if you like, survival of the fittest. And there
may even be
room for more than one.
In a classic communist country there was
only one brand
you where allowed to "choose". Where does that put Microsoft and
Open-source
in the left/right political spectrum?
---
/Fredric
Fredricson
--------
My computer goes: Wireless network is not connected!
And I go: And....? [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 06:10 PM EST |
Think of it this way - Gnome is the Linux UI for those who don't like computers.
In its hand-holding but limiting nature it is rather reminiscent of early
versions of MacOS.
Although I prefer KDE for my own use, Gnome is definitely the best choice for
our office desktops because there are no gotchas in everyday use. And it is
quite hard for end-users to customise it to the point where it becomes very
time-consuming for us to find out how they messed up their computers.
There is a kind of dichotomy between KDE and Gnome distros - KDE distros can do
almost anything but may require considerable tweaking in order to do the basics
(e.g. removable storage handling) right. Gnome systems - I'm thinking of Ubuntu
here - do very well what they're intended to do, and the rest may require sneaky
hacking.
I've seen this contrast of philosophies many times over the years - Windows and
MacOS, SunOS and Apollo Domain/OS, HP-UX and AIX, and KDE and Gnome. And from
personal experience in developing a large, complex and feature rich application,
creating software with a lot of great features does not necessarily result in
their being used. We found that due to the compexity of the software and
inappropriateness of many features in a user's particular situation, each user
was using perhaps 10% of the capability of the product (PL/1 syndrome!). The
users probably had great difficulty understanding the full feature set and in
particular the way in which the features interacted.
At the end of my time at that company we realised that the only way forward was
to generalise the internals of the system, and produce what you might think of
as "skinned" user interfaces that only exposed the functionality
relevant to each class of user.
Which gets us back to the original title of the article,
"Flexibility - the core of open source". It is this flexibilty that
allows KDE and Gnome to provide two alternative interfaces to the underlying
functionality, that can be combined as needed, and that meet differing user
needs in a way that the other could not.
This is real freedom - Linus can use KDE, and our Mac refugees can use Gnome.
There is no lock-in or dependency on the underlying O/S and the switching costs
are time only.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: uweg on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 06:15 PM EST |
I like this discussion because it is at the very core of what information
technology is about and it troubles me daily since I'm spending my time in that
area professionally.
Programming is about removing flexibility. Each line of code in a program is
actually removing flexibility and it is making a statement about being not
flexible a very little bit at exactly that point. The most flexible program of
all is the NULL program. It does nothing, but it is as flexible as you want.
When I came from university and started my work in the process/software
architecture business, I thought, giving users flexibility would be a "good
thing." The longer I work in that area, I'm getting more and more sure, I
was wrong. Users want getting things done. Programmers and power-power users
want other/additional/different ways of getting things done. I have to
contradict the musician in the other post (I spent a lot of time in my life
making music as well): if pleasing yourself is your first priority, you are
making "play-only" music. This can be a lot of fun - but normally, you
won't attract the big audience. A large number of open and not so open software
works the same way: "programmer-only" software: lots of fun, but no
big audience. It's the nice thing about freedom to have that choice here. But
when software - and this is equally true for open source software as well as for
closed source software - wants to play a more "professional" role, it
has to care about its users, and their lack of appreciation towards flexibility,
too.
Here comes experience, good design and good architecture into play: it is quite
difficult, to find the right balance between taking too much flexibility and
leaving too much in. In my opinion, the GNOME team did a very good job, I love
working with GNOME - although there remains a lot of work - especially under the
hood.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 06:32 PM EST |
“working well straight out of the box” Just trying the latest Ubuntu – lets me
select my screen resolution using the GUI but sticks to 60Hz because it cannot
identify my monitor – so I have to dive into /etc/X11/xorg.conf to fix it.
“advanced button” Windows requires you to select “advanced” to set the paper
size for printing – and A4 is not the default!
“doing God knows what” This is the big problem, you click on something new, it
changes something somewhere, you know not what and you know not what will
change it back.
“restore defaults button” Developers please note: if you label a button
“default” the poor user who has just made a complete pig’s ear of the dialogue
settings, does not know if that button will restore the original installation
defaults, or make his new settings the new default for ever more.
2^n! options – How are you going to test them in every combination? How is the
user expected to know how they are going to work together? Things should work
logically and consistently and optional extras should be off by default. The
real test is to try writing instructions for using it, if it reads like
spaghetti programming, then you have spaghetti programming. Test the written
instructions on a dumb blonde, if he cannot operate the program from your
instructions – listen very carefully to this, I will not repeat it – your
instructions are no good.
The biggest problem with help files is that the writers are very reluctant to
tell you that a program will not do what you are looking for.
Why do DVD players have to have controls that look like a car radio? I do not
own a car, if I did I would not want a radio, and even if I had a radio, I would
not use it to play DVDs. All this talk about accessibility for the disabled,
what about accessibility for the over 30s?
Alan(UK)[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: emk on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 06:51 PM EST |
Here is a post I made on Linuxtoday.com back on June 28 2002 as Gnome 2.0 came
out. I think its pertinent today in light of Linus comments. I remember battling
on the comment boards on these very issues back then. So I'll just post my
opinion from back in the day. The url for the story that I was commenting on
is:
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2002-06-28-012-26-RV-DT-GN
--BEGIN SOAPBOX--
I think configurability is a good thing(tm). The more configurability the
better. Thats what makes Linux a joy to use, you can make it look like anything
and do anything you want. We should never sacrifice this capability. The logical
counterpart of configurability is sane defaults. These two are two sides of the
same coin. We should maximize configurability and choice and then configure an
intuitive and useful set of defaults. Out of the box Gnome should be intuitive
and useful, one should never have to change the defaults unless they want to or
have a specific need or way of working. That said, the ability to change and
configure anything and everything should lie just beneath the surface for those
who want it.
It seems to me that there is a trend to reduce configurability in the name of
simplifying the user interface. This is wrong. Sensible defaults are what
simplify the system. Perhaps this is the influence of the beast of Redmond. But
we should remember monopolies have an incentive to give the customer the least
value that they can for the money.To regress to the lowest cost, least
functional configuration. (thats also how come we now get rescue discs with new
computers, that insist on complete reinstalls to fix any problem). On the other
hand we in the Free Software and Open Source communities, are largely volunteers
and we should strive to give the most value possible. Create the best products
possible and serve the broadest range of users, not just the most profitable
segments. So we should have the ultimate configurability for power users and
intuitive, sensible defaults for those who don't like to reconfigure their
desktops
I've often heard it said that the reason Gnome typically came without a decent
default configuration (as compared to say KDE) is because it is(was?) so
configurable. That makes no sense. The more configurable your desktop the more
likely it is to come up with an intutive and useful default configuration.
GNOME developers, please do not reduce our ability to customize and configure
our desktops, don't reduce our choice!!
--END SOAPBOX--
emk
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: kawabago on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 07:10 PM EST |
A diverse eco-system of desktops, office tools and graphics tools is the
healthiest evironment to keep spyware, virii and trojans at bay. I like the
slick clean feel of the Gnome user interface and it is what I introduce people
to. Once they are comfortable I introduce the KDE desktop to them so they can
decide for themselves what they find most useful.
It all depends upon open standards so everything can interoperate, beyond that
the more the merrier!
---
TTFN[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: martenp on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 07:12 PM EST |
...run down little old ladies with a bus and Groklaw would still say he had a
justifiable reason to do it. He even breaks the PJ taboo of swearing like a
sailor
(http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2005-December/000395.html)
which for some reason fails a mention in the original editorial. When SCO goons
swear, it's proof they're evil.
Software usability is a serious research and professional discipline, yet for
some reason those entirely unqualified to offer an educated opinion on it feel
free to gob off at the reasonable design choices of trained professionals.
Instead of childish insults, perhaps contributing workable solutions to the
problems (as he perceives them) in Gnome would be more constructive (it would
also earn him a little more respect). If he *never* uses nor recommends the
Gnome desktop, why the heck is he posting incandescent rants on the developer
list?
Think for yourself Groklaw, Linus is fallible (as if we needed BitKeeper and
these shrill screams at the Gnome devs to prove that). [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 07:14 PM EST |
| ...so is the devil. I don't know who said it, but I know it's been said many
many times. Murphy's in the details too. That's why good software engineering is
hard work -- even though on the face of it, anyone can type code at a
keyboard.
PJ, you have invited another holy war into Groklaw. Unlike the DRM
IP war which tends to unite FOSS, this one inspires infighting within
FOSS.
I am very pleasantly surprised to see that on the fields of Grokaw
this GUI/Linus holy war is actually being waged almost politely.
I dearly
hope this tone will continue after the Monday morning /.'ers find this thread.
They already ran far afield of polite debate when this
sideshow first came out. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: freeio on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 07:43 PM EST |
One of the often touted things which Linux somehow "needs" is one
unified
desktop, which is always installed everywhere. For
those brought up in a Windows
environment, this would seem to be so
simple. It is simple, true enough, but it
fails to allow for
the vagarities of user choice which having multiple solutions
can bring.
One of the things I enjoy about free software (I use both
Linux and
BSD) is that the user gets to layer on exactly what she wants. If she
does not want a GUI, that is fine as there is no
requirement to use one. If she
wants to use x-window softare,
that is a layer which can be added. If she wants
a window
manager, she can add that, and has a choice among many.
Choice is good. Free software allows the choices I want.
I
have an old system here, a Sun Ulta 5 which runs a 64-bit Ultra SPARC
processor,
which Windows will never run on - it cannot, as that choice
was precluded by the
concious decision to only target Windows to x86 type
architectures. It could run
Sun Solaris, but I choose not to
do that. Instead, I downloded Debian Linux
(woody) and
installed it, and it works great. If that doesn't suit me, I
can run
BSD on it.
In either case, I can run x-window software on top of that, and then
I
have the choices of whatever window manager I want.
A picture of that
Sun Ulta 5 running KDE on Debian Linux is here. That web page, in turn,
is being served off of another Sun Ultra 5 running OpenBSD, running totally
headless, with no GUI at all.
So I can choose my hardware, operating
system, mode of operation, and
which GUI (if any) I want to use.
Software choice is good!
freeio
---
Tux et bona et
fortuna est. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 07:43 PM EST |
I think the flexibility is all there its just in the source code. Its all GPLed
for that. Because of that users have become developers.
I was a windows developer and now a gnome user/developer. I have actually
donated a few lines to the gnome project and ubuntu. Theres alot of imagination
coming out of the look and feel department because yeah gnome looks boring, the
color theme is for the visually impared. But I do change how it looks. I
customize.
Lots of linux developers and users probably havent used windows in a while the
same way people who use kde for along time havent really havent used gnome for a
long time. We tend not to explore and take a look at the changes made. I use
kde once in awhile and it hasnt changed much. gnome changes a ton with every
release. I think its heavily under development, while kde has stablized. I feel
gnome is a pretty user friendly desktop. I do wish there was an
"advanced" button i can click when I want to change something though.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 07:45 PM EST |
So the Graphical User Interface (GUI) makes it to GrokLaw. Should Linux have a
single GUI? I've heard call for this for years. I've heard this is the big
impediment to Linux on the Desktop. Just reading the first 50 comments suggest
there is no easy answer. The common analogy is comparing the computer industry
to the automobile industry. Maybe the REAL answer is to make using a computer a
privilege (like driving ;-)
I find every GUI quirky - and whichever one you get used to, moving to another
is sure to confuse you (at least for awhile).
Complaining about GNOME's issues just shows that Linus Torvalds is human - he
should just use KDE & let GNOME do what they want. His issue about open
source & flexibility is true, but doesn't apply if you are trying to stick
with an overriding approach to the User Interface (which I gather GNOME is
trying to do).
Standardizing on basics like where the gas pedal is, the brake pedal is, and
where the steering wheel IS a good idea. There is no analogous standard for the
GUI & THIS is the problem - not any (current) particular approach. But WHO
should create Standardizing on basics like where the gas pedal is, the brake
pedal is, and where the steering wheel IS a good idea. There is no analogous
standard for the GUI & THIS is the problem - not any particular approach.
But WHO should create & enforce this standard?
Can it even be done? Should we even care? Maybe it truly is a good thing that
no one can decide on something that everyone likes - once that happens, then
things will get boring...
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 08:30 PM EST |
| I feel like a bad person and an idiot because I use gnome. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Thanks - Authored by: PJ on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 09:14 PM EST
- Ditto - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 11:25 AM EST
| |
| Authored by: FrnchFrgg on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 08:33 PM EST |
Yee, one of my pet subjects !
To begin with, I use neither Gnome nor KDE. My window manager is PWM, and that
says it all --- PJ, I would probably think your WM is cluttered ;)
I am not very fond of the KDE way. One isn't intelligent just because he barks
loud and a desktop environment isn't powerful and flexible just because it
throws in the user's face every little ifthenelse that the developers ever
dreamt of. OK, I am exagerating, KDE lovers, don't bash me.
To my little mind, the best is to be flexible and expose to developers a lot of
great capabilities to build upon and extend the behaviour, while only exposing
to the end user what is relevant.
There are several ways of filtering the number of options the user is presented.
The first way is removing a lot of options, and let add-ons provide access to
the hidden functionnality. Firefox has such a scheme.
The other is to implement some "levels" of detail. The xine way
(provided it hasn't changed since the last time I checked) based on the user's
skills is IMHO not the way to go : I just want to see extra options where the
basic one does not suffice, and not loose the relevant options amongst a
painfully large heap of far too specific "garbage". Better than
nothing, though, and may fit sometimes. For example, when I install a linux and
want to be asked more technical questions, odds are I want to be asked those
questions regardless of whether they concern the bootloader or the wifi card.
But when I want to have a low priority threshold on Apache configuration, that
does not mean I want debconf to ask low priority questions on, say, cinelerra.
I am not sure what Gnome does. It exposes few options through the GUI, but can
the savvy user really tweak it via gconf-editor (as a side note, a registry-like
which has textual mostly plain english descriptions of what is controled by a
given key is really really heaven, especially compared to what Windows had
accustomed us to) ? I always managed to find the option that my friends wanted,
but they probably always asked relatively simple things -- just complicated and
specific enough not to be on the GUI.
I think the Firefox way is the best, unless someone comes with a really
brilliant idea on how to expose a lot of options in an uncluttered UI.
If you disagree, and have constructive arguments to oppose/add, feel free to
enlighten me. As a user I really hate when a UI feels unpolished (as when in
Windows they couldn't settle on a size for every tab in a dialog, so you end up
with a lot of whitespace due to one tab all in width and one all in height, or
when the boundaries of elements in tabs are at totally different distances from
the border of the tab depending on which is selected with the "jumping and
dancing" effect associated) or to much filled with "barks" (as
the Word preferences dialog), and as a developer I value clean design sometimes
more than features; and I still didn't manage to answer this riddle. So if you
have the solution, share !
---
_FrnchFrgg_[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Sean DALY on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 09:01 PM EST |
| This is a very important subject, in a context too often overlooked: computers
remain quite difficult to use, even the simplest ones. I have many years'
experience running corporate IT, betatesting commercial software, validating
website interfaces for usability, providing tech support for family and friends;
and I still find myself stumped every couple of days when trying to accomplish a
given task, or impatient when I can't remember how to do something I have
already done.
Today, I run a corporate internet whose chief function is
search, with over a thousand users; and when the time came to design an
interface, I chose the very simplest one possible: the logo of the site, a
fulltext search field, a button for advanced search, a button for the PDF help
file, and a quit button. The advanced search page is amazingly powerful,
associating fulltext with closed multiple-choice fields; a carefully prepared
advanced search can quickly isolate a handful of records out of the over 65000
available. Yet, only a very few power users out of my hundreds of regular users
ever use the advanced search; I spend a good portion of my time optimizing the
fulltext search... as I am sure Google does.
Although computers are more
powerful every year, they are only marginally easier to use. I happen to have
half a dozen Macs in the house for the family, just because they are so easy to
network, secure, and keep running; the kids haven't messed them up yet, touch
wood, and I'm quite pleased to be able to dive into a *nix command line on any
of them. For friends and family who buy a PC on a budget, then discover the
difficulties of fighting with Windows, I recommend Knoppix or Ubuntu after
starting them on Firefox and OpenOffice; Knoppix is fantastic for quickly
verifying if hardware can run GNU/Linux OK or for coexisting easily with
Windows, while Ubuntu installs and runs without difficulty, proposing basic
functionality for GNU/Linux learners...
I often wonder what one of my
personal heroes, the industrial designer Raymond Loewy, would have thought about
today's man-machine interfaces. I suspect he would have been only slightly less
dismissive of a Gnome desktop compared to KDE. I like to think he would have
been as horrified as I was in 1994 when I first saw the Windows Start button on
the bottom left of the screen, pushing up a list requiring a submenu dropping
down again, etc., a serious design mistake unfortunately enshrined to this day
as the "best" way to offer access to a number of programs, simply because too
many users learned to look there...
We have a nice TV in the house which
boasts 4 inputs/outputs, any of which can be routed to any other with the TV as
monitor. The simple remote control works fine for basic TV viewing, selecting a
channel and adjusting volume; but programming the signal paths are nightmarish -
I have often wished I could simply call up a nice little program which would
allow me to connect dots. As it is, several times now I have had to throw in the
towel and reset to factory defaults, then reprogram the basic TV channels, just
because I can't figure out how to undo a bad button press. What I would like to
do is leverage my computer GUI experience to program the TV set... as a matter
of choice.
I believe most power users manage to get their tasks done with
what they have; and they recommend what they like personally - it's human
nature. However, arguments over the relative merits or drawbacks of graphical
user interfaces obscure the greater problem, that keyboard/mouse input to
diverse computing environments (as opposed to a unified, document-centric
environment) is still difficult and unwieldly. I think we are still scratching
the surface in terms of data manipulation representation and there is a place
both for "baseline" GUIs - every driver can drive a rental sedan - and exotic,
envelope-pushing GUIs - some want a speedy convertible, or a truck, or to ride
in style, or even more simplicity at the dashboard...
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Nice post - Authored by: RPN on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 08:58 AM EST
| |
| Authored by: FrnchFrgg on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 09:06 PM EST |
Flexibility is one thing, multi-purpose is another.
The way I like it is to have a program that does only one thing, but does it
well. If you have too much options to provide, odds are you are trying to solve
selveral problems with the same tool. It is indeed the problem with Desktop
Environments, which try to cover every little problem you will ever encounter,
from managing windows to editing texts and configuring users policy.
---
_FrnchFrgg_[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: PJ on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 09:18 PM EST |
Well, I'd appreciate it if you'd repost without the language,
the ad hominem part. I wouldn't let Linus say that here
either.
It's a hallmark of Groklaw that we don't want combative
language, precisely because then people can't hear
each other any more. You can do as you please
elsewhere, of course, but not here. This is like my
living room, in a way. So, please feel free to repost
the thoughts in a different way. I don't want to
block the ideas, just the manner. Thank you.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 09:25 PM EST |
I am fed up with both of them and gone back to FVWM. Nicer cleaner.
Crazy Engineer[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- FVWM - Authored by: Pogue Mahone on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 09:16 AM EST
- FVWM - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 10:34 AM EST
- FVWM - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 20 2005 @ 04:41 PM EST
| |
| Authored by: blacklight on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 09:51 PM EST |
The whole point of Open Source is choice. That's why I am happy that we have so
many Linux distros, and there is no reason why GNOME and KDE should be
available. My concept is to standardize on a few, while respecting the freedom
of all of us to choose among the many: let a hundred variety of roses bloom - I
do all my work at the CLI (command level interface) anyway.
---
Know your enemies well, because that's the only way you are going to defeat
them. And know your friends even better, just in case they become your enemies.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: akStan on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 10:05 PM EST |
Two more recycled boxes go out tomorrow with nothing but Linux :-))
Both have SUSE 10.0 just because I know how to load it.
Both have more than one "user", just to make alternate desktops easily
available to the newbies.
While showing off how many applications are available, I work in FVWM, because I
can. Even skittish, apprehensive newbies enjoy the power of being in charge. It
takes a little bit of one-on-one, but the rewards are huge.
If my business had a hundred desktops and depended on users seeing the same
display at any desktop, then I might pay someone to configure Debian for us, or
maybe use SUSE Enterprise, or even go thin-client. Those are choices.
All the above are users.
I don't refer to any of them as "dumb users".
They have individual needs and abilities.
They all deserve a little brighter and wider horizon.
Right now Linux provides the most available.
It does things the competition can't.
We do well not to get enthralled by mimicking competition.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 10:25 PM EST |
Such religious wars are a frequent mailing list distractions.
If you don't like the experience offered by GNOME, use KDE or something else.
It's not like there aren't plenty of other choices.
Over the last few days there has been a similar discussion on the Unbuntu
mailing list about a decision to drop some mail programs from Unbuntu. I think
Unbuntu made the right decision considering its audience.
Not long ago there was a similar discussion on the Slackware lists about the
decision of Slackware to drop GNOME. I think Slackware made the right choice
considering its audience.
In the case of Slackware new enhanced GNOME packages became available very
quickly, in all everyone won. Linus may even like one of them, I haven't checked
to see it they addressed his issues.
I find it interesting the GNOME desktop, an official GNU project, is the desktop
most often accused of restricting user freedom, especially when one of the
reasons given is providing a corporate desktop.
I am always wary of anyone offering THE ONE TRUE PATH.
Right now Unbuntu is my favorite OS for new users and Slackware is my favorite
OS for servers not running Solaris. However I feel Slackware might be falling
somewhat behind in supporting new features I need, so I'm looking around.
---
Rsteinmetz - IANAL therefore my opinions are illegal.
"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 10:37 PM EST |
"As architect Mies Van Der Rohe said once about design, God is in the
details."
He was also the one to say " less is more"[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 11:24 PM EST |
| GNOME is better than KDE. :) It just proves he's human. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Linus is wrong - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 11:26 PM EST
- Linus is wrong - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 11:27 PM EST
| |
| Authored by: jcasares on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 01:17 AM EST |
As an interaction designer, I cringe when I hear a simple interface treats
its users as idiots.
Actually, most people (my guess is more than 90%)
would be overwhelmed by the complexity of KDE. They are not idiots!
People who are not geeks are not idiots! They simply want to spend their energy
elsewhere. They will stay in the comfort zone of Windows. We geeks love to
customize and explore; it can be surprising for us that not all people do,
too.
Of course, a good interaction design would cater to both novices
and experts. There is no justification for Gnome not to do this.
One of
the reasons Firefox has been so much popular, in contrast to Mozilla/Seamonkey,
is that it is so simple. Not as many features. By far, not as many configuration
options. In fact, Mozilla's Asa Dotzler makes some good suggestions
to the Linux community.
Still, Firefox allows extensive customization,
with about:config and all the extensions. But this is never in the way for
non-geeks. Great interaction design.
-Juan Casares
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 04:40 AM EST |
...which is pretty sad I think.
This path "Linus is right -> no he's not -> yes he is ->
..."
will get us nowhere.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 06:09 AM EST |
the sad thinks is that everyone missed the point. Even Linus.
The point is you have the choice between KDE or GNOME.
You may or may not agree with the design choices mode by the GNOME developers.
But you don't have to use GNOME. In a closed source system you only can use what
they provide.
BT[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 06:15 AM EST |
'On the other hand, if I owned a business, the last thing I'd want my
employees to have it total flexibility and choice. There is a difference between
a business user and a home user, in that sense.'
I have had this
discussion on multiple occasions & IMHO one of the great things offered by
linux is the opportunity for companies to use the openess of the system to
create their own desktop environment. They have the ability (with the right
skills in their systems department) to create effectivly their own distro &
even make it look like windows if that is what they want (although I am unsure
of the legality of this it should be possible to make it very
similar).
Using users & group permissions (in a similar fashion to
those on Windows) to restrict access even using something like crossover office
& running MS office/IE if they really deem it necessary (Occasionally
necessary for internal websites containing activeX content). This should remove
the need for extensive re-training of all bar their technical staff.
On
the re-training issue I find it insulting (even as a linux sysadmin who has done
desktop support for both linux & windows systems) to assume the majority of
computer users are so stupid that they require a day or two of re-training even
between windows versions, but if that is the case the cost of retraining them
for a custom linux desktop & for an upgrade of windows should be no
different as such I find it very difficult to make a case for even large
coporate bodies to use Windows in favour of linux. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: David Gerard on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 06:20 AM EST |
| Uncyclopedia on GNOME. (I did
the screenshots and wrote some of the text.) I use Ubuntu. I did a Kubuntu
conversion and haven't been back to GNOME since. I dislike GNOME's "We KNOW
where you're going today" attitude. But a serious open source desktop
can't run on all GNOME or all KDE apps - there's too many great apps from each
side that the equivalent on the other side isn't nearly as good as. And the
important thing there is that the user should not have to care. Ubuntu
isn't quite there yet with this one. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: The Cornishman on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 07:42 AM EST |
| Linus wrote "Arguing by reductio-ad-absurdum is a known logical
fallacy."
Alas, all heroes have feet of clay - he wouldn't get away with
that one on Groklaw :)
Reductio ad
absurdam [wikipedia] is a perfectly respectable logical argument. As
Wikipedia points out, the slippery slope and the appeal to ridicule are both
logical fallacies, and perhaps that was what Linus was thinking of. Just because
you're an ace kernel architect doesn't mean that you can argue formal logic,
apparently. ---
(c) assigned to PJ [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Chaosd on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 09:28 AM EST |
For the record I use Gnome + the command line
The design philosophy of
Unix was small and specific beats large and general-purpose. Why have
one monolithic command when several will be better (simpler command syntax,
simpler code).
Why try and solve all possible problems in advance? Far
better to have a full toolkit than a swiss army knife.
AFAIK there are no
GUI constructs that replicate the behaviour of the humble unix Pipe (if your
thinking of Drag and Drop, think again - it's not even close). It is simply not
possible to string together GUI components to form a 'new' tool.
This
whole Gnome/KDE nonsense is a bit like the Golgafrinchams arguing over what
colour to paint the wheel. In the end it's the wrong problem to solve.
Flexibility is not about numbers of options or default settings, it's about the
ability to create new tools out of old ones. It's about never having to hope a
developer anticipated a need. It's about being able to use several tools
together instead of having to modify one so that it fits
Now, I don't
think everybody (especially my family and users) should rush out and learn to
use a CLI - but I do think that if your skilled anough to miss GUI
options, your skilled enough to give the CLI a go. ---
-----
No question is stupid || All questions are stupid
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: fuzzyBSc on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 09:31 AM EST |
I have to say that I'm a little appauled by the tenor of this thread, both on
Groklaw and that of the original breakout. It is clear there is a great deal of
anti-gnome feeling by people who aren't involved in the Gnome community and
don't seem to be connected to it in any way. KDE users don't find Gnome easy to
use because it doesn't work the way their KDE setup works. Well, that's a
surprise. As a Gnome user I find the same in KDE.
I don't want to choose whether my mouse buttons work this way or that. I don't
want to choose whether my windows raise or don't when I click. Frankly, I use
too many computers to go and configure them all "just so". Where
preferences are arbitrary it is encumbant upon the programmer to make a
decision. To paraphrase Joel on Software, every time you give an option to a
user you are asking them to make a choice. Users like me hate making decisions
about things that don't matter. I like making decisions about how my blog looks.
I like making decisions about the output of my own creative processes, not
yours. I want you to make a decision and make your decision workable. That is
what Gnome is about.
Gnome isn't a windows work-alike. Gnome and Windows are no more similar than KDE
and windows are alike. Gnome is not meant for dumb users. It is meant for users.
It is a desktop that doesn't waste my time, and for that I thank the Gnome
developers.
Linus has a point about not putting the shackles too tightly onto new
developers. They have to be able to find their own way and experiment. Whether
or not they can in the Gnome community is really a Gnome issue. If you are not a
Gnome user and you are not a Gnome developer, your opinion is really nix. Gnome
does work to support new developers through programs like Gnome Love. Perhaps
they could do more. Perhaps they are doing enough. Don't critisize from afar.
Either get involved or stay out of it.
Benjamin
(Just another rant)[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Gnome bashing - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 11:25 AM EST
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| Authored by: ElvishArtisan on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 09:42 AM EST |
The fact is, developers don't know what their users are going to
need. That's a very fundamental issue in any software engineering. The other,
almost as fundamental issue, is that asking users is usually not very productive
either, because (a) different users will give you different answers and (b)
users often don't even know.
I see this virtually every day in
my work. I'm paid to develop a FOSS multimedia application that is heavily GUI
driven. I've learned that I can get more useful feedback regarding what 'works'
and what doesn't in the UI through fifteen minutes of quiet observation of a
user going about his routine tasks than from eight hours of 'focus groups' and
similar formal methods for ascertaining users' desires.
This is not
because users are "stupid" or even because they "don't know what they want".
They know perfectly well what they want -- when they see it. Having a
particular expectation, and the ability to articulate that expectation,
are two totally different things. To do the second thing well requires a skill
set that is often irrelevant to whatever primary task the user is trying to
perform, and so is often not found in rank-and-file users.
Hence, the need
for real-world observation of users in action. Such observation can be a
humbling experience for a developer -- programmers are often the worst
possible people for deciding what users really need and want in an interface!
Thus, in the end, there's really no substitute for configurability, coupled with
sensible defaults. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tanstaafl on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 10:59 AM EST |
... might counter that they listen to their customers, and I'm sure they do, but
I've been coding since 1973, making suggestions to vendors all the while, and
vendors only listen if _enough_ customers ask for something; their resources
(coders) are limited. Besides, the coders, for the most part, aren't even the
ones making the decisions. The beautiful thing about open source, in my book,
is that, as PJ, mathfox, and stevem just demonstrated, _U DON'T HAVE TO WAIT FOR
THE VENDOR_ to tally votes for features; U can make the changes yourself, and if
enough other folks like it, the changes will spread.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Observer on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 11:22 AM EST |
I have an old time UNIX hacker friend who, because of job requirements (well,
and some games he was playing) had to go over to the "dark side" and use
Windows. He had a great saying, every time we talked about Windows vs. UNIX (or
later on, Linux)
"GUI's make you stupid."
It
was always half in jest, but there's a lot of truth there. Now, I'm pretty much
like anyone else, and if there's a neat GUI to some application, more often than
not, I'll use it (though I still normally have between 2 and 15 command line
windows open at any one time). However, I do find that they make me "stupid" in
the sense that I tend to lose touch with what is going on under the hood. Most
often, I find that I don't really need to know, but there are plenty of
other times that I discover that, had I been using the command line, it would
have been easier to use some function built into the software, but not exposed
on the GUI, or worse yet, so horribly obfuscated that it was impossible to
find.
There is no easy answer! Personally, I like GNOME, but mostly
because I've gotten used to it, and don't feel any need at this point to
re-learn the whole User Interface thing. ("If it aint broke, don't FIX it.")
This is a very personal choice though, and not the same for everyone. I know
lots of people who are easily overwhelmed by too many choices, and don't have a
good memory for finding things, even on a GUI. I'd rather have both options
available to me (KDE/GNOME), and let me pick the one that best fits what I am
trying to do.
---
The Observer [ Reply to This | # ]
|
- GUI's - Authored by: Stumbles on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 12:50 PM EST
- GUI's - Authored by: Observer on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 11:07 PM EST
- GUI's - Authored by: Chani on Tuesday, December 20 2005 @ 02:38 PM EST
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 11:38 AM EST |
Haven't been around long enough to know that you have a
strong dislike of curse words (though after reading one of
your remarks elsewhere in this commentary I totally
understand why).
I just wanted to thank you. I was shocked and put off when
even some of my favorite news sources totally missed the
point of Linus's messages, opting to call him out for
being 'childish' instead. I suppose this is what you're
asking for when you raise your voice - people won't hear
you.
But I guess I expected that people would find the issues
more important than the volume at which they were spoken.
Some people really do have delicate hearing these days...
Thanks for hearing the message. :) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Andrew BC on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 12:41 PM EST |
If I say that I think that Gnome is right and Linus is wrong, a large number of
Linuxpeople, it seems, will just develop a red haze in front of the eyes and
reflexly add me to their ignore list. No one can be more fascist than some
GNU/Linux freaks.
Most of y'all have completely lost sight of the fact that 95% of desktop OS
users are just using it as a tool at work. Like the secretaries, booking
clerks, massage therapists etc. at my business.
Email, simple wordprocessing, simple spreadsheets, billing apps, appointment
managers. Occasional simple web stuff (apart from interacting with web-based
apps) and simple presentations. Anything much above MS Paint (PhotoShop, GIMP
etc.) has a significant learning curve.
I've just gone through the difficult (and it isn't easy, whatever people say)
business of converting the whole kit-and-caboodle to mostly Linux and mostly
open source - Thunderbird, Firefox and OOo 2.0 are the workhorses. Why? - 1)
Save money on buying new PCs and software, 2) More secure, 3) I don't like MS's
attitude & business practices.
I can't convert everything to GNU/Linux (the specialised billing software* we
use is only available for Windows), but only 3 people need access to this and
thus only 3 PCs still run XP - the other six humbler PCs run Ubuntu/Gnome.
*if anyone is going to suggest that I dump this and devise an open source
alternative then they're obviously never run a small business.
Thunderbird and OOo 2.0 are the core apps. - I can run the same office suite and
email client no matter what the platform and thus achieve consistency. Would
that there were an Evolution for Windows...
The secretaries, booking clerks, massage therapists etc. are not there to
explore the nooks and crannies of the OS on their machine, or to spend
days/hours tinkering with their workhorse apps. in order to save 2 hours a
month. They didn't do it when they used Win98 and they're unlikely to start
doing it with GNU/Linux. They're there to work for our common good and not crash
the server. Clearly, they can do what they like in their spare time, and if
they want to install Linux and tinker with it on the home PCs that only a couple
have (yes, Victoria, there ARE people without home PCs and not visibly poorer
for it) then they're more than welcome and if they want help I'll try to give it
to them.
Going over to Ubuntu was tough for them at first - things were in different
places, different commands did different things and the whole thing just LOOKED
different, unfamiliar and scary. Gnome's simple approach made this MUCH easier
than, for example, SuSE - I run SuSE at home (an old habit) for work and it's
taken me quite a while to prune the interface down to something clean that I can
work efficiently with.
Of course, I have a variety of other boxen at home too - BeOS, WinXP, Gentoo and
MEPIS, that I use for playing and experimenting with, but that falls into the
category of recreation....occasionally I'll incorporate a tool or discovery into
the work machines.
So I think Gnome is RIGHT, or at least on the right track, and Linus is dead
wrong.
My job is to fix people - the computer tools I need to help me do my job are not
much above the work needs of the people who help me do this - it's only chance
and history that I'm a hacker too.
Now just a moment while I put on my flameproof suit....
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: JeffS on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 03:53 PM EST |
First Linus rails about flexibility and choice (both very good things), then he
says:
"Please, just tell people to use KDE."
Hmmmm. Isn't that removing choice? I got another idea. How about just
installing both Gnome and KDE (or encouraging people to try both), and let
people <b>choose for themsleves</b>, based on what appeals to them
and/or best suits their needs?
And guess what? Many people end up choosing Gnome. That total is about 2/3
that of KDE (KDE is the most popular open source DE), but the amount of Gnome
users is quite significant. There's both room for, and a need for, a DE that is
not as configuration feature rich as KDE, but simpler and cleaner and easier.
Gnome fulfills that need, and major props go to the Gnome developers for doing
great work in accomplishing that goal.
And in spite of the belligerent, non-constructive, condescending comments of
Linus Torvalds and many KDE fans, many of the design choices of the Gnome
developers have <b>proven</b> to be quite effective and appealing.
Gnome unquestionably, IMHO, brings a simpler, more intuitive, cleaner, and more
productive environment than KDE does, again, In My Humble Opinion (other
people's milage may vary, yada yada yada).
Now, I use <b>both</b> Gnome and KDE, to an almost equal extent for
both, with a very slight nod to Gnome. I really, really like both and consider
them both to be superior desktop environments to Windows XP, and at least as
good as OSX.
When I'm in the mood for lots of eye candy and configuration options, I go for
KDE. When I'm in the mood for something simple, clean, elegant and productive,
I go for Gnome. It's all good.
But what's not good is Linus Torvalds', as well as many KDE fans who post here
and elsewhere, hostile, condescending attitude towards Gnome developers and
users.
If you prefer KDE, fantastic for you. Use KDE. Same with Gnome. But don't
tell people they're "F&%$ING IDIOTS" (to quote Linus) because they
use Gnome.
The Gnome developers, because they chose to not put in certain configuration
options that Linus and many KDE fans like, <b>are not interface
nazis</b>. Actually, it's Linus and many of the KDE fans ripping into
Gnome who are being the nazis, quite frankly.
And the Gnome vs KDE flame war is so old and boring it's not even funny. People
should just chill out and let other people use, without receiving flames, the DE
of their choice. Linux/FOSS is about choice isn't it?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 04:56 PM EST |
1. No intention other than starting a useless flamewar?
I doubt it. Did you happen to read any of Linus's
messages, or are you simply going off of what the news
told you?
2. Also immature because he's a leader in OSS?
How is his leadership in any way connected to how you
evaluate the maturity of his decisions?
3. Irresponsible?
Give me a break! [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: cricketjeff on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 06:32 PM EST |
| It has no place on Groklaw IMO [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 07:03 PM EST |
"Advanced" is actually a terrible idea, because it means that, for any
option you want, you have to either remember if it's "advanced" or
not, or look in both places.
What I've heard is that there's a core of options that everybody uses, and they
use those 75% of the time (or something between 50% and 90%). The rest of the
time, they use other options, and every user uses different unusual options.
Each unusual option is used by at most 10% of the users. So, if you've got an
"advanced" section, almost all users have to use it, and they don't
use most of the options there. Having that section means that people look at it
only 10-50% of the time, but it's generally organized worse, and it's an extra
step to reach it.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Stumbles on Monday, December 19 2005 @ 10:02 PM EST |
| You know what I find disappointing about this thread on
Groklaw?
Most here would rather shoot the messager (Linus) for the
language used or
turn this into a KDE vs Gnome thing. When in
fact the latter is not the case.
Regarding the language, most of
you should be ashamed to key and key only on
that while
ignoring the rest. And you know why you should be ashamed?
Later on down in this thread you will find PJ calmly and rationally
but
most importantly keeping her comments on target to what
the thread was
really about. You will also note PJ was
able to get pass the language
used and comment
intelligently about the points Linus made. So now
I
have to really wonder about some of you who are posting here
and ask. If
PJ, who we all know dislikes such foul language was
able to get past that,
then why can't you? And you want to know
the kicker? Bad language and all,
she thinks he is right.
A handful of people here have been able to
discuss some of
these points brought out by Linus.
To those who think
he is wrong, I'd like to know what you think
is so out of line;
1. developers don't know what their users are going to need.
2. It
means that defaults make sense, but since you don't know
what they'll be
doing, you should always strive to have ways to
let _them_ make the choice
when they have some reason the
default doesn't agree with them.
3.
Do you seriously dispute that in almost all areas, Gnome
tends to be less
configurable than the competition.
4. I'm not the only one who
complains about lack of
configurable.
5. To me, open source _is_
about flexibility. And no, I'm not
talking about people re-compiling their
applications and making
changes to them.
6. But _indirectly_, the
thing that open source really excels at, is
the flexibility it offers thanks
to having lots of users, and lots of
users whose needs get _heard_. THAT is
the core of open
source.
7. The whole notion that things are
supposed to be done just
one way is antithetical to what makes open source
successful in
the first place.
8. The thing is, Linux (the kernel)
got better than just about any
enterprise Unix kernel _not_ by trying to
develop itself for the
enterprise, but by allowing and encouraging different
kinds of
people to all scratch their own itch.
9. This is a
hierarchy. You don't put the developers at the top of
the heap, the same way
you never put developers face-to-face
with your customers.
---
You can tuna piano but you can't tune a fish. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: grayhawk on Tuesday, December 20 2005 @ 01:21 AM EST |
Microsoft's strategy has always been one size fits all and it looks like the
gnome team is falling into the same trap. One size does not fit all, just ask
any woman who buys panty hose.
As many people who have computers, as many will want their system to reflect
them and their needs. I am not interested in what someone else thinks I should
only be able to do. I chose linux because I get to do it my way as Frankie
would say. I personally use KDE and love it because it opens all the options
and possibilities for me to pick and choose. Although I like some of the Gnome
apps, I do not like the desktop in general and prefer the look, feel and
flexibility of KDE. So I give up some apps and gain lots of flexibility. I do
not install what I don't use or need so NO I do not install Gnome and clutter up
my drive with things I don't use.
---
All ships are safe in a harbour but that is not where they were meant to be.[ Reply to This | # ]
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