On Friday 31 of July 2009, Lubos Lunak wrote:
On Friday 31 of July 2009, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
To me a switch to KDE default looks like putting GNOME one row to the back. Can we find a better solution than we currently have without giving out this message? Or is this no great alternative?
There are really 2 ways to look at feature #306967:
1) Make KDE the default, and make it a political statement. That is what the openFATE proposal looks like, that we should say "openSUSE is primarily a KDE distribution".
2) Make KDE the default, and try to not make it look like a political statement. This is what the proposal on this mailing list looks like, to preselect the KDE radio button in the installation page, and that's it, don't make a fuss of it.
Actually, I take this back, as I think I completely misinterpreted feature #306967 here. After careful reading again and thinking about it, I see it now like this: - the only request there is "make KDE the default desktop". It is nowhere asked that openSUSE focuses primarily on KDE or that GNOME is neglected. In fact, it explicitly states that GNOME should remain supported as a choice. - this can be achieved by preselecting the KDE radiobutton during installation and nothing more - everything else in the feature is a description of benefits of doing so (and only doing so, without expressing any explicit focus on KDE or anything similar) This is actually not asking to make KDE special in any way or to grant KDE any additional priviledge. It is the common practice in openSUSE to select the technically best solution, and in case that is not feasible for whatever reason, the most popular solution. Therefore GNOME has the special priviledge of being presented completely equally (or actually with a slight advantage by being first) with what in all other cases would be the presented default selection in a choice or would be used without a choice at all. The feature asks for applying the common practice to the desktop selection, in other words, the feature actually asks for removal of the priviledge that GNOME currently has. There is no further request related to KDE or GNOME other than this. As for political messages, we currently do have a political message. The current existing priviledge for GNOME, despite trying to look like treating choices equal, actually makes GNOME special by what is described above, thus not treating everything in openSUSE equally. This creates a message towards other openSUSE communities, primarily the major KDE community, that they are only 2nd class citizens in openSUSE and that the GNOME community is valued more in openSUSE. Also, openSUSE got asked by the community using openFATE to change this. Therefore even not doing anything is stressing the existing political message. Since openSUSE positions now itself as an open community distribution, this may be jeopardized by refusing what appears to be a reasonable request from the majority of our community. I also believe the pros/cons conclusions in the original mail of this thread are somewhat wrong, mainly since they miss the analysis of what happens when the current situation stays. For the case when the feature is refused, it is sufficient to take all argument against it and look at them from the other side. So far all reasons supporting keeping the GNOME exception, as presented here, appear to make either equal or worse harm than when turned around and viewed as reasons for making KDE the default desktop. Finally, as a member of the KDE team I would like to say that I believe that just doing the radiobutton change, without anything else, has the potentional to achieve what the feature suggests. Compared to other potential users and contributors it should be simpler to gain back portion of the ones that have been driven away by the existing anti-KDE messaging from openSUSE but would have otherwise stayed. If openSUSE stops suggesting that GNOME is more important for openSUSE, and removal of the GNOME exception might be sufficient for that, those might be willing to give openSUSE a try again. KDE people also now do not have a major distribution they could consider a distribution supporting KDE, since that was us and our current position discourages KDE involvement in openSUSE. If the perception that openSUSE favours GNOME was removed, again these potentional users and contributors could be easier to convert from their distribution that sees KDE as something minor to us, if they could be convinced that openSUSE would treat them at least equally. That is not the case currently however, for reasons explained above. -- Lubos Lunak KDE developer -------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. e-mail: l.lunak@suse.cz , l.lunak@kde.org Lihovarska 1060/12 tel: +420 284 028 972 190 00 Prague 9 fax: +420 284 028 951 Czech Republic http://www.suse.cz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org