Thu 12 Apr 2007
It seems by the comments my last post was taken the wrong way. At no time did I argue against excitement, I merely argued that having an incremental release where many bugs were fixed and performance was enhanced, the decidedly non-sexy elements of development, is in no way underwhelming. Maturity is the hallmark of success.
But as they say, don’t trust anyone over 30. Crap I turn 30 at GUADEC!!!
There is certainly a place for grand GNOME 3.0 plans which fix some of the mistakes of the past and brings us into the future. I would however feel disenchanted if this was the only way for a community member to see progress.
[read this post in: ar de es fr it ja ko pt ru zh-CN ]
April 12th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
“I’m saying in most cases the pinnacle of success is not fad but sustained usage without an emotional attachment.” — J5 (in comment to last post)
Sounds to me like an argument against excitement.
I don’t mean to pick on you, but I think emotional attachment, and excitement, is exactly what Gnome software needs from it’s users. That is what it should be striving for.
Excitement is not change. Changing everything for 3.0 is not the excitement people are looking for. It’s not unreasonable to expect that the software people use on a daily basis should be exciting, challenging, intriguing.
What did you think of Kathy Sierra’s talk at Guadec last year? Do you think that Gnome software creates passionate users?
April 12th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
I for one agree. I mean, its great that KDE has all the buzz around KDE4, but to be honest, why rewrite software from the ground up? Gnome is beautiful and only keeps getting better in an evolutionary sense. There aren’t any major fundamental hurdles Gnome needs to overcome, only features to add and polish, so why even bother with Gnome 3.0?
I always refer my friends to this article written by Joel Spolsky about great mistakes in software: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html
I think it will help you understand why there might not be a need for Gnome 3.0 with Photons and Gremmels and any other weird buzzwords you can come up with for library names. (Honestly, why are all the new subsystems for KDE4 named crazy names? Can’t they just be libfunction like everyone else?)
Anyways, glad you brought up the release notes for Gnome 2.18. Its a good point to make, but lets not get crazy now.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Easter Bunny, if that is your real name,
Look up the definition of fad. Perhaps I should have used the word hype. It is nice to get people excited about things but for the most part people are excited about things they don’t already have.
I don’t wake up every day saying, “I can’t believe I am using GNOME!!!”. It is just there, and it works better than anything else I have ever used. It is a part of my life, and a part of me. That is success. It is a tool that allows me to do what I need to do on a day to day basis.
BTW I missed Kathy’s talk last year so I can’t comment on it.
April 13th, 2007 at 7:51 am
Well, if it’s any consolation, I only trust people who *are* over 30