On Tuesday 04 August 2009 14:43:00 Martin Schlander wrote:

Tirsdag den 4. august 2009 14:16:02 skrev Andreas Jaeger:

...

Desktop Policy

0. The following text uses GNOME and KDE in alphabetical order. These rules apply to development of openSUSE only, not for any other Novell products.

1. Both GNOME and KDE are first class desktops in openSUSE: neither is technically superior to the other. openSUSE should be known as the distribution with the best GNOME desktop and the best KDE desktop!

2. We make it easy to choose between these two desktops during installation, install both of them - or install others as well.

3. On the relevant screen during installation the most popular desktop is preselected, the desktops are listed in alphabetical order.

4. This screen will explain that both GNOME and KDE are first class desktops and the default is based on popularity.

5. Let's sit together at the openSUSE conference and decide what both GNOME and KDE beeing first-class desktops signifies and how all desktop development teams can work together.

Looks pretty good to me. Have two comments.

* I think that the most popular desktop should also be listed first. Or we risk continuing to send a mixed and confusing message to new users and other "outsiders".

I would go for "alphabetical". New users see the pre-selected button.

* What would the text in the desktop selection screen say? A summary of the above?

IMO a rewording of number 4 - I'm sure we came up with some good wording, Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, aj@{novell.com,opensuse.org} SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126

Matt Gray wrote:

Martin Schlander wrote:

...

Tirsdag den 4. august 2009 14:16:02 skrev Andreas Jaeger:

...

Desktop Policy

0. The following text uses GNOME and KDE in alphabetical order. These rules apply to development of openSUSE only, not for any other Novell products.

1. Both GNOME and KDE are first class desktops in openSUSE: neither is technically superior to the other. openSUSE should be known as the distribution with the best GNOME desktop and the best KDE desktop!

2. We make it easy to choose between these two desktops during installation, install both of them - or install others as well.

3. On the relevant screen during installation the most popular desktop is preselected, the desktops are listed in alphabetical order.

4. This screen will explain that both GNOME and KDE are first class desktops and the default is based on popularity.

5. Let's sit together at the openSUSE conference and decide what both GNOME and KDE beeing first-class desktops signifies and how all desktop development teams can work together.

Looks pretty good to me. Have two comments.

* I think that the most popular desktop should also be listed first. Or we risk continuing to send a mixed and confusing message to new users and other "outsiders".

* What would the text in the desktop selection screen say? A summary of the above?

Speaking as a SUSE user since v9.1 came out in the year dot, i have to agree that historically suse has been a KDE distro, and this has been maintained in spite of Novell's attempt to wean users away from KDE.

To the people who claim that the user survey is outdated, and that decisions should await more recent results i would say the following: 1) we have new results (the openfate request), and they mirror the survey results from last year 2) delaying a decision for no good reason comes across as very Yes Minister

On the issue of Gnome support in opensuse: It absolutely should be maintained at its current excellent quality, and it will continue to be so given that Novell have chosen it for the commercial SLES product

On the issue of default DE selection: Having seen people slip away to ubuntu because of the perception of user-friendliness, i support a default desktop choice, even if this perception of user-friendliness is as facile as being able to tell someone; "yeah, just press next five times and it's all installed for you". It matters.

On the issue of which DE to default to: Nearly 70% of opensuse users are KDE users, in spite of Novell attempts to make the distro visibly equal AND the flakiness of kde4 up until now.

On the issue of how to present this default DE selection: Part of opensuse's appeal that it is a solid choice of distro for the consumer regardless of whether they wish to use Gnome or KDE, that should be maintained. Therefore i suggest the following - [*] KDE [ ] Gnome [ ] Other

On why this would be appreciated by the KDE community: Opensuse has always been populated by KDE users, therefore many were dismayed by various attempts (or the appearance thereof) by Novell to relegate KDE to a secondary status. This perception has persisted, and i am willing to bet (in the absence of hard figures) that opensuse has lost users who swapped to a distro that they considered had better support for their DE of choice.

On why this shouldn't matter to the Gnome community: Opensuse has a stated policy of equal support for both DE's Novell are committed to Gnome for their commercial suse product Gnome users are a minority at and a default install choice is a desirable feature

There you have it, my thoughts on this openfate debate.

apologies, new to this. message ended up in the wrong thread. but the broadly agreeing with Andreas anyway. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Kevin "Yeaux" Dupuy wrote:

Sent from Kevin Yeaux's mobile device.

On Aug 4, 2009, at 7:16 AM, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

3. On the relevant screen during installation the most popular desktop is preselected, the desktops are listed in alphabetical order.

The problem with this proposal is that it still means the Project is giving a user an opinion - meaning it's not a fair selection. To use my political analogy again, it wouldn't be a fair election if the popular candidate were preselected on the ballot, would it? If we intend to be fair and give both KDE and GNOME equal recongition, this is NOT the way to go. -- Kevin "Yeaux" Dupuy openSUSE Project Member What is wrong with giving the user an 'opinion'?

After all the election has already happened given that KDE is selected because it is the most popular. To use my political analogy; it would be pretty unfair if one party won a popular mandate for change, but was hampered from doing so because fairness dictated that the other party receive 50% of the seats in parliament, because 'fairness' dictated zero public discrimination in an constitutional two party system. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Druid wrote:

Cant get any better in political analogies, I guess.

Regards

Márcio

that is kind of my point, as i think you realise. :) if an [easy] default is a desirable feature, then the most popular desktop is the logical choice. this to be implemented with the understanding that opensuse 'supports' both Gnome and KDE equally. [x] KDE [_] Gnome [_] Other -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Joe Harmon wrote:

...

if an [easy] default is a desirable feature, then the most popular desktop is the logical choice.

this to be implemented with the understanding that opensuse 'supports' both Gnome and KDE equally.

But I think this is the argument. Some feel that by selecting a default that we are setting a precedence that one is preferred over the other by the community and thus giving the impression that they are not supported equally.

Joe

To that I would respond: The new users that we are trying to attract* wouldn't care, they just want an option that is as easy as ubuntu manage (read: install because they will equate one with the other) Distro-hoppers would know:

that opensuse provides equal support for both Gnome and KDE Novell is comitted to Gnome as a result of its commercial suse products.

If a newb-friendly default is TRULY valuable then the inconvenience of no longer being the Mahatma Ghandi of distro's will be worth it. * why are only 5% of users linux newbs, is it because ubuntu hoovers them up with its newb-friendly experience? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Joe Harmon wrote:

I would say that they wouldn't know what the selection would give them, not that they wouldn't care. How do we know which one they would or would not prefer? Selecting a default is not solving that problem, it is forcing a choice upon them.

Joe

I agree. That is kind of my point; if the benefit of forcing a choice is not large enough (measured via increased take up) then do not do it. Many people are guessing that a default DE choice in combination with a default install process will increase the number of newbs opensuse will accumulate, thus growing the userbase. I think they are right, but it is not proven. In short we would be following the Ubuntu model, which is a pretty successful model, but how much of that success derives from a reputation (reinforced by install experience) for ease of use. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hello, 100% agreed; this is a political question (see my other comment) and not something that can be voted on in openFATE. Greetings, Chris Am Mittwoch, den 05.08.2009, 13:07 +0100 schrieb Michael Meeks:

Hi AJ,

On Tue, 2009-08-04 at 14:16 +0200, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

After reading all emails and having many discussions about the default desktop topic, I've wrote up the following draft proposal (at the end of my long email) and propose to enact it.

One of the things that most interests me about this debate is the excessive argumentation and extrapolation from whatever percentage of install-base, to the idea that we should substantially offend our growing Gnome community. Personally, I'm pretty annoyed by claims that openSUSE is, or should be a KDE focused distribution, whatever it's history - that at least is my bias.

Having said that - all this talk of "policy", and logic, reason, marketing and so on suggests to me that this decision is a highly charged, multi-disciplinary, nuanced - and *extremely* non-technical one. In fact, it is hard to discern any technical issue here at all - the code change in question is utterly trivial, even for my basic ycp skills :-)

Indeed, to me this looks like a simple conflict between three opposed view-points[1] "KDE default, no default, and GNOME default" - with apparently no substantial chance of compromise, and seemingly a lack of clarity around who is empowered to make the decision. Indeed - to me, it seems like we have the obvious compromise position selected already.

I believe we voted for a fairly independent board, which would help resolve such conflicts and facilitate the decision making process. I for one, would defer to their view on the matter - and no doubt (like the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland) we will have multiple opportunities to vote on this issue in future, if only as part of the board election process :-)

Have we even asked the board ? if not, why not ? if so, what did they say ? and who should be the ultimate decision maker here ?

Thanks,

Michael.

[1] - it is amusing to see it regularly framed as a choice between only two options: "obedience to (some people's perception of) the democratic will of the majority vs. some unusual disobedience of that". To trot out such a simplified view of democracy and politics is - frankly amazing to me. -- michael.meeks@novell.com <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot

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Hi, on 08/05/2009 02:07 PM Michael Meeks wrote:

I believe we voted for a fairly independent board, which would help resolve such conflicts and facilitate the decision making process.

Yes you did, and we are already on it.

Have we even asked the board?

Yes http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2009-08/msg00195.html Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, openSUSE. Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, 5 Aug 2009, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

On Tue, 2009-08-04 at 14:16 +0200, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

After reading all emails and having many discussions about the default desktop topic, I've wrote up the following draft proposal (at the end of my long email) and propose to enact it.

One of the things that most interests me about this debate is the excessive argumentation and extrapolation from whatever percentage of install-base, to the idea that we should substantially offend our growing Gnome community. Personally, I'm pretty annoyed by claims that openSUSE is, or should be a KDE focused distribution, whatever it's history - that at least is my bias.

Having said that - all this talk of "policy", and logic, reason, marketing and so on suggests to me that this decision is a highly charged, multi-disciplinary, nuanced - and *extremely* non-technical one. In fact, it is hard to discern any technical issue here at all - the code change in question is utterly trivial, even for my basic ycp skills :-)

Indeed, to me this looks like a simple conflict between three opposed view-points[1] "KDE default, no default, and GNOME default" - with apparently no substantial chance of compromise, and seemingly a lack of clarity around who is empowered to make the decision. Indeed - to me, it seems like we have the obvious compromise position selected already. [...] The proposal I made - and I expect the board to put up it's voice in the regard here as Michael Löffler mentioned -, was my try to give a balanced view: * The choice to *only* set the radio button was something

On Wednesday 05 August 2009 14:07:58 Michael Meeks wrote: that Vincent "could live with" * I'm for alphabetical order, so GNOME is first but KDE is preselected ;) * The statement that both a first class desktops is something that I consider important. I'm fine with other proposals as well and think that any proposal should take into account that: * we have an active GNOME developer community * we have a significant number of GNOME users. * we have an active KDE developer community * we have a majority of KDE users * There seem to be some kind of old wounds and perceived mistreatment by the KDE developers. * We need to heal these wounds without opening new ones.

So, my minimal counter proposal would not be "no default" but: * No desktop is preselected * We discuss the order of GNOME and KDE on the screen * and most importantly: we make a public statement that both GNOME and KDE are first class citiziens - and discuss what this really means!

Thanks for the proposal. The proposal I liked was the change the selection to check boxes with both selected. This keeps the status quo and allows easy deselection. Should someone deselect both, then a warning should be thrown, unless other or advanced choices are selected. This would then allow the new user to just click next. I also like the idea of the guided tour to both desktops being available to allow users to make an educated choice. -- Boyd Gerber 801 849-0213 ZENEZ 1042 East Fort Union #135, Midvale Utah 84047 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, 5 Aug 2009, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

On Wednesday 05 August 2009 16:28:24 Boyd Lynn Gerber wrote:

...

The proposal I liked was the change the selection to check boxes with both selected. This keeps the status quo and allows easy deselection. Should

I do not consider this proposal practical since it does not answer whether you run GDM or KDM or whether a new at first login gets GNOME or KDE.

so, if you select both, we would have to ask the user - or make a default! - about which of the selected desktops has the higher priority (meaning is the default).

So, this is IMO not helping at all with the decision,

I think it is delaying the choice till the resources and DE can be used and a real choice may be made. I really do not like it that much but trying to find some common groud and a place put the real choice where it is more meaningful for the first time users. But, I like your proposal the best. -- Boyd Gerber 801 849-0213 ZENEZ 1042 East Fort Union #135, Midvale Utah 84047 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

>>>On 8/5/2009 at 07:23 AM, Andreas Jaeger  wrote: 
> So, my minimal counter proposal would not be "no default" but:
> * No desktop is preselected
> * We discuss the order of GNOME and KDE on the screen
> * and most importantly: we make a public statement that both GNOME and KDE 
> are 
> first class citiziens - and discuss what this really means!

I think this proposal is fair to both desktop environments.


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Charles Kerr wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 9:29 AM, Joe Harmon wrote:
>   
>>>>> On 8/5/2009 at 07:23 AM, Andreas Jaeger  wrote:
>>>>>           
>>> So, my minimal counter proposal would not be "no default" but:
>>> * No desktop is preselected
>>> * We discuss the order of GNOME and KDE on the screen
>>> * and most importantly: we make a public statement that both GNOME and KDE are first class citiziens - and discuss what this really means!
>>>       
>> I think this proposal is fair to both desktop environments.
>>     
>
> I also think this proposal is fair to both desktop environments.
> It's a good suggestion.
>
> Charles
>   
agreed.

if........... the decision is that a default selection is not needed.

the discussion over the order of presentation will be interesting, i
would vote to put the most popular desktop first, it is after all what
the 'community' use by some margin.
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Rajko M. a écrit :

Having 1 in 5 people that know software you need help with, or 4 in 5, is not the same,

I don't see any value is this, if not we should use W. Help need people, but also motivation. Often small projects are overmotivated and answer better than big ones jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.org http://news.opensuse.org/2009/04/13/people-of-opensuse-jean-daniel-dodin/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Rajko M. a écrit :

thanks to not so good quality of GNOME few years ago, and now majority of experienced users, those that can help, use KDE.

If I juge from the kde3.5/kde4 discussion, this is plain wrong. I have much better support from PmWiki, a very small project than from Kde (that said go away joe) project have to go to a minimal saize, after this support *is* given. Less people, but also less problems jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.org http://news.opensuse.org/2009/04/13/people-of-opensuse-jean-daniel-dodin/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Rajko M. wrote:

On Wednesday 05 August 2009 08:23:35 am Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

* The choice to only set the radio button was something that Vincent "could live with"

The check boxes are IMHO much better. Preselect one, if user just go with Next. Warning, if user deselect all.

...

* I'm for alphabetical order, so GNOME is first but KDE is preselected ;)

Alphabetical order is not OK, as it will send mixed message. No. 1 in the list is not what we want to install - how to understand that, as a software error?

...

* The statement that both a first class desktops is something that I consider important.

That is actually the most important part for political correctness, the rest is just matter of user ability to get help after installation.

Having 1 in 5 people that know software you need help with, or 4 in 5, is not the same, and that is ratio of KDE vs. GNOME installations in openSUSE. Numbers are pulled from different statistics around.

The same problem face KDE3 users. There is no much help for their problems too.

The picture is blurred, by relative high number of questions related to multimedia, wifi, sound, which one can help without knowing DE, but when it comes to handholding user, then everything breaks. It is problem to tell how to open console application outside your DE.

While GNOME, for sure helped openSUSE, not to loose many users, due to recent KDE rebirth problems, I'm sure that we face similar situation very soon, with roles switched. GNOME is facing changes, and for sure not small.

+1 pre-selecting KDE while listing DE's alphabetically is ridiculous. it is a mixed message that will only increase doubt and confusion, hardly the aim of the exercise i shouldn't have to point out. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Could I add my 3p (that's about 4c) contribution. I get seriously irritated with this whole debate. There seems to be a strong desire amongst some in the KDE & Gnome camps to polarise any discussion involving both DEs, similar to the discussions involving Windows. That, to me, is contrary to the inclusive approach adopted by most of the community. Could I argue for a policy that effort will be put into making as much software as possible compatible (i.e. behave sensibly) on both desktops. I repeatedly find items of linux software which will only behave properly on one or the other, which forces me to run and be familiar with 4 DEs. (The extra ones are windows & Mac OSX). If compatibility was applied consistently, then the choice of DE is an aesthetic one rather than being forced by desired functionality, and the defaults in each environment are just defaults not constraints. Effort put into compatibility is more productive than effort put into division. And that would truly make openSuSE stand out! David -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 4:08 PM, jdd (kim2) wrote:

Administrator a écrit :

just put a screen shot of the two on the install screen will show the difference :-)

Actually, I like this option ;-) A picture is worth thousand words and let the ignorant new user choose whatever that appeals to him. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 06 August 2009 12:08:06 Michael Meeks wrote:

It also, as has been raised several times, rather unwisely upsets one side of a very expensively agreed internal balance: the other side of which was (AFAIR) to continue to include KDE inside the SLE product family. It would perhaps be sensible to re-visit both sides of that decision concurrently - although such business decisions are clearly an internal matter.

SLE/D has nothing to do with openSUSE decision - not today and IIRC also not in past. What shall this "very expensively agreed internal balance" shall be? The community rumored initial decision to drop KDE from SLE? Strange balance. Bye, Steve -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 04:14 +0200, Graham Anderson wrote:

On Thursday 06 August 2009 12:08:06 Michael Meeks wrote:

...

I've no idea what Vincent can live with :-) but this choice seems sub-optimal to me. It also, as has been raised several times, rather unwisely upsets one side of a very expensively agreed internal balance: the other side of which was (AFAIR) to continue to include KDE inside the SLE product family. It would perhaps be sensible to re-visit both sides of that decision concurrently - although such business decisions are clearly an internal matter.

Are you not-so-subtely trying to hint something? The tone of your wording disgusts me, it appears to me like some kind of veiled threat. Grow a pair or stop FUD'ing.

What you appear to be suggesting works both ways. Consider that, really, please do.

Cool your jets. You overly misread into what Michael was saying. He's merely speaking from his own internal experience and did not put out any threat. All he said was let's visit some decisions of the past. And that any decisions impacting SLE are the domain of Novell, which is fine with me. SLE and openSUSE are not the same products and here in the openSUSE realm, we, the Community, have greater influence in the Project itself. Let's not start pointing FUD'ing fingers at each other. This debate clearly has exposed some raw emotions amongst some of us and we don't need to further add to that. -- Bryen Yunashko openSUSE Board Member GNOME-A11y Team Member www.bryen.com (Personal Blog) www.planet-a11y.net (Feed aggregator of the Accessibility Community) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wednesday 05 of August 2009, Michael Meeks wrote:

One of the things that most interests me about this debate is the excessive argumentation and extrapolation from whatever percentage of install-base, to the idea that we should substantially offend our growing Gnome community. Personally, I'm pretty annoyed by claims that openSUSE is, or should be a KDE focused distribution, whatever it's history - that at least is my bias.

Let me correct some factual errors you made: - Although there were proposals that openSUSE should focus on KDE, they appeared only very early in the discussion, and I don't think anybody now still seriously proposes any special advantages for KDE that no other openSUSE component would have. - I also do not remember anybody now suggesting to offend the GNOME community or treat them unfairly (at least not as a part of the proposal, ignore any trolling). - On the contrary, there have been presented reasons that the current situation is unfair and might be considered offensive by our KDE community.

Having said that - all this talk of "policy", and logic, reason, marketing and so on suggests to me that this decision is a highly charged, multi-disciplinary, nuanced - and *extremely* non-technical one. In fact, it is hard to discern any technical issue here at all - the code change in question is utterly trivial, even for my basic ycp skills :-)

I can explain to you the situation in very technical terms if you want: - when openSUSE ships several competing components, the most suitable, or, failing a clear solution for that, the most popular one is preselected - fact - the desktop selection is not handled the same way, since there is not a clear decision on the most suitable component, and the most preferred component is not preselected - fact - this creates an exception that is not present elsewhere - fact - this exception grants GNOME an advantage - fact - no other openSUSE component is granted such a(n obvious) advantage - fact - giving something an exception that gives it an advantage can be considered unfair by competing components (or even any other component) - fact - as such openSUSE grants one of its components an unfair exception - logical conclusion - openSUSE claims to be an open distribution where both KDE and GNOME are equally welcome - conflict with above Really, it's quite simple. If I still remembered it from the school, I could probably write this in predicate logic and feed to Prolog to prove it mathematically. And even if not, I think it's still quite clear for common sense. Do not see the 'KDE' and 'GNOME' there if it helps, think 'A' and 'B'.

Indeed, to me this looks like a simple conflict between three opposed view-points[1] "KDE default, no default, and GNOME default" - with apparently no substantial chance of compromise, and seemingly a lack of clarity around who is empowered to make the decision. Indeed - to me, it seems like we have the obvious compromise position selected already.

The current proposal is a compromise. It is however not what you say, but the view-points are "favour KDE, favour nobody, favour GNOME" and the suggested solution is "favour nobody, remove exceptions and special rights", i.e. the middle compromise. Please refer to my mail "openFATE feature #306967 , my KDE summary" for further details if something is not clear about that. -- Lubos Lunak KDE developer -------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. e-mail: l.lunak@suse.cz , l.lunak@kde.org Lihovarska 1060/12 tel: +420 284 084 672 190 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

On Wednesday 05 of August 2009, Christian Jäger wrote:

Hello Lubos,

Am Mittwoch, den 05.08.2009, 15:35 +0200 schrieb Lubos Lunak:

...

- On the contrary, there have been presented reasons that the current situation is unfair and might be considered offensive by our KDE community.

I fail to see how equal rights for both DEs present an offense to KDE.

That is because you fail to see that the rights are in fact not equal. Please see below.

...

- when openSUSE ships several competing components, the most suitable, or, failing a clear solution for that, the most popular one is preselected - fact - the desktop selection is not handled the same way, since there is not a clear decision on the most suitable component, and the most preferred component is not preselected - fact - this creates an exception that is not present elsewhere - fact - this exception grants GNOME an advantage - fact

Not fact, your reasoning is flawed. A desktop-environment is completely unlike 'components most suitable'.

Let me redo it without the use of this item then, it actually simplifies it: - when openSUSE ships several competing components, the most suitable, or, failing a clear solution for that, the most popular one is preselected - fact - the desktop selection is not handled the same way, since there is not a clear decision on the most suitable component, and the most preferred component is not preselected - fact - this creates an exception to the commonly used practice - fact - no other openSUSE component is granted such a(n obvious) exception - fact - giving something an exception that is not given to others can be considered unfair by competing components (or even any other component) - fact - openSUSE claims to welcome these components equally - fact - one of them is granted an exception that no other has - conflict with above Besides using 'the desktop selection' as a reference to the problematic area I did not even name any component, so I consider this rather generic, the other arguments such as 'newbie user' can be ignored and this still stands. Do not think of it as making openSUSE less fair, think of it as making openSUSE more fair. The proposal would still be the same even without mentioning 'KDE' anywhere in it. There are of course other solutions for this, for example invalidating item #4 (providing no preselection in other areas of openSUSE) or #6 (saying that openSUSE has special interests and prefers some components, for whatever reason). The proposal in discussion suggests to invalidate item #2. -- Lubos Lunak KDE developer -------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. e-mail: l.lunak@suse.cz , l.lunak@kde.org Lihovarska 1060/12 tel: +420 284 084 672 190 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

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 10:21 AM, Christian Jäger wrote:

Am Mittwoch, den 05.08.2009, 16:40 +0200 schrieb Lubos Lunak:

...

- when openSUSE ships several competing components, the most suitable, or, failing a clear solution for that, the most popular one is preselected - fact - the desktop selection is not handled the same way, since there is not a clear decision on the most suitable component, and the most preferred component is not preselected - fact - this creates an exception that is not present elsewhere - fact - this exception grants GNOME an advantage - fact

Utter nonsense.

1) The DE is NOT a component. 2) No DE is per se better suited for default. 3) Such choices impact user experience and are thus not a battleground for petty desktop-environment fanboyism.

I must say, there is little to no sense in discussing with someone who regards his desktop environment of choice as superior and wants to see this reflected by preferred treatment for this DE.

The choice of desktop is a very individual one, based on personal preferences. There is NO 'better suited' desktop, there is no reason to prefer any one DE, except for satisfying your desire to see KDE as 'king of the hill',

Thank you for saying this. This has got to be the 10th time that Lubos has gone decrying bias in the current choice. Imagine taking this form around to 20 people: Please choose one or more of these two, both excellent, choices: [ ] Choice A [ ] Choice B Ask the people whether the form is biased towards A, B, or neither. There is *no* bias in this kind of a choice except what some readers map onto it themselves because of the openSUSE backstory that new users won't know about anyway. Charles -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 1:16 AM, jdd (kim2) wrote:

Charles Kerr a écrit :

...

     Please choose one or more of these two, both excellent, choices:      [  ] Choice A      [  ] Choice B

Ask the people whether the form is biased towards A, B, or neither.

very good example. What do you do if you have no clue of what A and B are??

It says both are excellent, so I'd choose both to get 2x the goodness. :) In the case of openSUSE's installation, I like the earlier idea of a "click here for more information" button that gives a quick overview that's been vetted by the -KDE and -GNOME projects. In that instance, I'd still try to choose both to get 2x the goodness... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 2:08 AM, jdd (kim2) wrote:

Charles Kerr a écrit :

...

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 1:16 AM, jdd (kim2) wrote:

...

Charles Kerr a écrit :

...

     Please choose one or more of these two, both excellent, choices:      [  ] Choice A      [  ] Choice B

Ask the people whether the form is biased towards A, B, or neither. very good example. What do you do if you have no clue of what A and B are??

It says both are excellent, so I'd choose both to get 2x the goodness.  :)

I have very often to instal for newbies (In my LUG), most are completely confused by such choice. Of course I'm here to help, but what if the dvd was found in they prefered magazine? This is why a default is better. Make it Gnome if you want, I don't mind (even if I"m a kde user...)

I think you must've accidentally only seen the first line of my letter. The remaining paragraph read: In the case of openSUSE's installation, I like the earlier idea of a "click here for more information" button that gives a quick overview that's been vetted by the -KDE and -GNOME projects. In that instance, I'd still try to choose both to get 2x the goodness... cheers, Charles -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 06 of August 2009, Charles Kerr wrote:

Thank you for saying this. This has got to be the 10th time that Lubos has gone decrying bias in the current choice. Imagine taking this form around to 20 people:

Please choose one or more of these two, both excellent, choices: [ ] Choice A [ ] Choice B

Ask the people whether the form is biased towards A, B, or neither.

Please choose what do you want to do with the following items: - Apple: [x] eat it [ ] look at it [ ] throw it away - Trousers [x] wear it [ ] wash it [ ] iron it - Car [ ] sell it [ ] drive it [ ] repair it Is it really that hard to see that the last one is different? Is that really that hard to see that some people, since it is different from the other choices, might see it for example as an advertisement for a car reseller company?

There is *no* bias in this kind of a choice except what some readers map onto it themselves because of the openSUSE backstory that new users won't know about anyway.

There is not a single reference to the past in my previous mail. What can be seen as not right is happening now. -- 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

On Thursday 06 of August 2009, Charles Kerr wrote:

We are in complete agreement that the last one is different.

If every third person walking to their car in the morning were to choose "sell" -- as every third person installing openSUSE chooses "GNOME" -- then I'd even say the car example was relevant to the openSUSE install. Unfortunately, the car example has one choice that's many orders of magnitude more likely than the others.

It is an analogy, an example that is supposed to explain the issue better. I can make it more precise, but then it will be also less comprehensible, just like the original issue. Make it the following, if you want. - Apple [x] eat it [ ] look at it [ ] throw it away - Trousers [x] wear it [ ] wash it [ ] iron it - Write using a pen [ ] with left hand [ ] with right hand [ ] with neither It still doesn't change anything about the fact that one option there is clearly pushed. And yes, this is also not a perfect analogy, so it would be nice if you tried to point out an error in the underlying idea rather than nitpicked some detail. If you want to be exact, then refer to my post where I explained this exactly in technical terms and do not ignore it again, do not try to move the discussion to a different topic (such as making this suddenly a discussion about technical or some other superiority) and do not counter by claims that are obvious untruths ("The DE is NOT a component [of openSUSE].").

Now that I've answered your question, please return

I would much prefer if you responded to the actual description of the problem rather to an analogy trying to explain it.

the favor by answering my previous letter's question. Given this choice:

Please choose one or more of these two, both excellent, choices: [ ] Choice A [ ] Choice B

Please tell me which is biased: A, B, or neither.

Neither. And it is unimportant for the dicussed topic, because this is not a good analogy. There is not only a choice between A and B in openSUSE, but also between C and D, E and F. Please redo your question by taking this into account and then ask the question again (yourself, too - it might save us some time). -- 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

Disclaimer: this is one of my two daily mails on this topic. Le jeudi 06 août 2009, à 10:03 +0200, Lubos Lunak a écrit :

On Thursday 06 of August 2009, Charles Kerr wrote:

...

Thank you for saying this. This has got to be the 10th time that Lubos has gone decrying bias in the current choice. Imagine taking this form around to 20 people:

Please choose one or more of these two, both excellent, choices: [ ] Choice A [ ] Choice B

Ask the people whether the form is biased towards A, B, or neither.

Please choose what do you want to do with the following items:

- Apple: [x] eat it [ ] look at it [ ] throw it away

- Trousers [x] wear it [ ] wash it [ ] iron it

- Car [ ] sell it [ ] drive it [ ] repair it

Is it really that hard to see that the last one is different? Is that really that hard to see that some people, since it is different from the other choices, might see it for example as an advertisement for a car reseller company?

There might be a cultural side of things here, or maybe something related to personal taste... My first reaction was "why aren't your items in an alphabetical order?". Just trying to understand why some people disagree on this very specific topic. Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 06 of August 2009, Lubos Lunak wrote:

The sort order doesn't really matter. Sort the list any way you want, it doesn't change anything about the fact that "drive it" is disfavoured as long as it is not handled the same way like "eat it" and "wear it".

And, I'd like to add, this is what I consider to be the actual underlying problem here. You can tell other GNOME contributors "openSUSE preselects the most popular option, sorry" and be honest about it, and then it is up to (plural) you to either say "world is cruel, let's be depressed and weep" or "well, then we need to do something about being even more popular". But what am I to tell KDE contributors, current or potentional? "openSUSE values you as much as GNOME contributors, never mind GNOME has this favour nobody else has that puts you at disadvantage, it doesn't mean anything" ? I could try with "openSUSE values options the same, that's why KDE and GNOME are given as completely equal choices", but then how many are going to believe me when it can be seen that no other options are handled the same? No matter which way I try to position it, the message always eventually comes out as "KDE is disfavoured in openSUSE". I really don't know what would be a good way to explain it if the feature request is refused. Even "Novell wants it so" would be acceptable, although not liked, but then the problem is incorrect messaging about openSUSE welcoming all equally and then that again can result in disappointed contributors.

I believe this is better explained in http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2009-08/msg00283.html . I would prefer it if you tried to find a mistake in the description of the actual problem rather than this analogy.

-- 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

Torsdag den 6. august 2009 14:07:09 skrev Charles Kerr:

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 5:25 AM, Lubos Lunak You keep using this framing device. I'm very interested in which other popular-competitors-in-a-component-used-by- nearly-all-users-and-whose-choice-affects-dozens-of- interconnected-applications "other options" you have in mind.

If you can cite of another such component that's preselected, I will gladly concede everything you've said.

And why is this relevant at all? Any user who wants the choice would still have it right at his fingertips. The people who don't want the choice would have some guidance, so they won't feel like we're leaving them stranded with a pure lottery. As I've said before, the magnitude of the choice, is a very bad argument for not having a default. On the contrary it's a strong argument why we shouldn't force the user to make such a choice within in his first few minutes of interacting with our distro, if he doesn't wish to do so. I wonder if having no preselection/default is supposed to be so great for attracting people, why noone else is doing it - including even Debian. You'd think they'd have noticed how great it's worked for us in recent years... </sarcasm> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 06 of August 2009, Charles Kerr wrote:

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 5:25 AM, Lubos Lunak

...

You can tell other GNOME contributors "openSUSE preselects the most popular option, sorry" and be honest about it, and then it is up to (plural) you to either say "world is cruel, let's be depressed and weep" or "well, then we need to do something about being even more popular".

Or possibly, "Hm, I wonder how Karmic is shaping up. Good luck with growing the user-base, guys."

Or, whatever. But they are not the only ones who can say something like that, right?

...

 But what am I to tell KDE contributors, current or potentionl? I could try with "openSUSE values options the same, that's why KDE and GNOME are given as completely equal choices", but then how many are going to believe me when it can be seen that no other options are handled the same?

You keep using this framing device. I'm very interested in which other popular-competitors-in-a-component-used-by- nearly-all-users-and-whose-choice-affects-dozens-of- interconnected-applications "other options" you have in mind.

Web browser. It matches the description pretty well after realizing that all the web-based stuff is applications too. And it must be like a month ago when we had a nice flamewar about this in KDE, for example. Also, it doesn't depend on the desktop (it's Firefox everywhere for 11.2 AFAIK), and for many users it is probably more important than the desktop itself.

If you can cite of another such component that's preselected, I will gladly concede everything you've said.

Ok. -- 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

Charles Kerr wrote:

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 10:21 AM, Christian Jäger wrote:

...

Utter nonsense.

1) The DE is NOT a component. 2) No DE is per se better suited for default. 3) Such choices impact user experience and are thus not a battleground for petty desktop-environment fanboyism.

I must say, there is little to no sense in discussing with someone who regards his desktop environment of choice as superior and wants to see this reflected by preferred treatment for this DE.

The choice of desktop is a very individual one, based on personal preferences. There is NO 'better suited' desktop, there is no reason to prefer any one DE, except for satisfying your desire to see KDE as 'king of the hill',

Thank you for saying this. This has got to be the 10th time that Lubos has gone decrying bias in the current choice. Imagine taking this form around to 20 people:

Please choose one or more of these two, both excellent, choices: [ ] Choice A [ ] Choice B

Ask the people whether the form is biased towards A, B, or neither.

There is *no* bias in this kind of a choice except what some readers map onto it themselves because of the openSUSE backstory that new users won't know about anyway.

Charles

you are getting sidetracked by the bias issue, that is not what will define the argument over whether a default DE is pre-selected. that choice will be judged on whether it will be a net-benefit to opensuse by allowing the user-base to grow faster than it would otherwise do. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Alberto Passalacqua wrote:

Il giorno mer, 05/08/2009 alle 16.40 +0200, Lubos Lunak ha scritto:

...

That is because you fail to see that the rights are in fact not equal. Please see below.

What some us fail to understand is how a neutral choice (no default) can be biased in favour of GNOME.

If you remove the interpretation based on past events, the lack of a default is a perfectly neutral choice. The rest is personal interpretation.

Best, A.

the decision to choose a default isn't driven by 'fairness', it is being driven by the need to provide a better install experience for newb users. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Who are you talking to, because i'm fairly sure i haven't said these things. I as a KDE user recognise: 1) There is no argument for selecting KDE because it is technically better 2) That opensuse benefits from its commitment to providing equal support to both Gnome and KDE 3) Gnome is not going to be sidelined as long as Novel is committed to shipping it in commercial suse products 4) That have a pre-selected default DE may not provide the best outcome for opensuse when all factors are weighed 5) That Gnome is a premier opensuse DE and thus should not be filed away with "other" DE's All I would argue is that if a pre-selected default DE is the right course of action then that DE absolutely should be the most popular DE. And if you are going to do that then providing silly fudges like pre-selecting KDE but listing them alphabetically does nothing but create confusion, and destroy the entire purpose of having a default DE; i.e. to provide a streamlined install experience. Alberto Passalacqua wrote:

So, say simply that, without trying to make comparison. Just decide on the base of the number of users, without suggesting that choosing KDE will have wonderful consequences automatically, or without digging out old facts and without claiming a "right" or stating that someone is enjoying an undue privilege. That's what is annoying, not the discussion on a default in itself.

Best, A.

Il giorno gio, 06/08/2009 alle 10.51 +0100, Matt Gray ha scritto:

...

the decision to choose a default isn't driven by 'fairness', it is being driven by the need to provide a better install experience for newb users.

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

I have been on holidays for over a week now and another 84 more comments have been added to the original thread. and for what's its worth I totally agree this has nothing to do with a technocratic discussion, but moreover one of userbility, look and feel. I have made the following enhancement request, but my hand in not in the air to offer to write the text. I am not the one who may very well start a war - we need a marketing diplomat to write the text, not a technocrat. https://bugzilla.novell.com/process_bug.cgi Please add any other comments relevant to this suggestion in the bug. and good luck to those trying to still the waters... AJ I hope I have not sent you a dupe leaving you in the CC Scott Couston Michael Meeks wrote:

Hi AJ,

On Tue, 2009-08-04 at 14:16 +0200, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

After reading all emails and having many discussions about the default desktop topic, I've wrote up the following draft proposal (at the end of my long email) and propose to enact it.

One of the things that most interests me about this debate is the excessive argumentation and extrapolation from whatever percentage of install-base, to the idea that we should substantially offend our growing Gnome community. Personally, I'm pretty annoyed by claims that openSUSE is, or should be a KDE focused distribution, whatever it's history - that at least is my bias.

Having said that - all this talk of "policy", and logic, reason, marketing and so on suggests to me that this decision is a highly charged, multi-disciplinary, nuanced - and *extremely* non-technical one. In fact, it is hard to discern any technical issue here at all - the code change in question is utterly trivial, even for my basic ycp skills :-)

Indeed, to me this looks like a simple conflict between three opposed view-points[1] "KDE default, no default, and GNOME default" - with apparently no substantial chance of compromise, and seemingly a lack of clarity around who is empowered to make the decision. Indeed - to me, it seems like we have the obvious compromise position selected already.

I believe we voted for a fairly independent board, which would help resolve such conflicts and facilitate the decision making process. I for one, would defer to their view on the matter - and no doubt (like the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland) we will have multiple opportunities to vote on this issue in future, if only as part of the board election process :-)

Have we even asked the board ? if not, why not ? if so, what did they say ? and who should be the ultimate decision maker here ?

Thanks,

Michael.

[1] - it is amusing to see it regularly framed as a choice between only two options: "obedience to (some people's perception of) the democratic will of the majority vs. some unusual disobedience of that". To trot out such a simplified view of democracy and politics is - frankly amazing to me.

OOOPPPPsssss!!! http://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=527405 I would love my clipboard Applet to reload after every re-start. ;-) Scott Andreas Jaeger wrote:

On Thursday 13 August 2009 12:29:23 alpha096@virginbroadband.com.au wrote:

...

I have been on holidays for over a week now and another 84 more comments have been added to the original thread. and for what's its worth I totally agree this has nothing to do with a technocratic discussion, but moreover one of userbility, look and feel.

I have made the following enhancement request, but my hand in not in the air to offer to write the text. I am not the one who may very well start a war - we need a marketing diplomat to write the text, not a technocrat. https://bugzilla.novell.com/process_bug.cgi

What bugzilla number is it? bugzilla tricked you in showing a status mail that you get everytime after submission.

...

Please add any other comments relevant to this suggestion in the bug. and good luck to those trying to still the waters...

AJ I hope I have not sent you a dupe leaving you in the CC

I have setup filters to not have such dupes, hope they work ;)

Andreas

Jim Henderson wrote:

Looks good to me.

A couple of thoughts (after reading much of the discussion on this proposal):

1. "Most popular" is a difficult metric. Some suggest that KDE is the most popular based on the older user survey, and that because the openFATE request mirrors this, that makes it a valid figure. However, I'm sure that not all users are aware of the openFATE request or the user survey (this is the first I'd heard of either of them, in fact). At best the survey and the request represent the opinions of the majority of people who know about them, which may or may not be a reasonable sampling of the user community at large.

OK that argument is really weak. It implies that Gnome users are less aware of the issues then KDE users. AFIK gnome users have the exact same access to all the resources (mailing lists, email, web content, etc) as any KDE user. If they don't there maybe an issue with Gnome's network capability and you could conclude because of that Gnome has a lot of work ahead of them to equal KDE. ;D

2. Having used both KDE and GNOME (GNOME much, much more than KDE, admittedly), it seems that saying "KDE is most popular" has the potential to scare new users off. Much of the openSUSE community is made up of highly experienced Linux users, and KDE is an excellent desktop choice for users who have a lot of experience and like the flexibility that KDE provides.

However, that flexibility comes at a cost of complexity that can (not necessarily "is", but "can") be daunting to a new user. So if the argument is to make a choice for new users, shouldn't we look not at the use case for "the popular choice in the community" but rather "what suits a new user coming from Windows or another platform best"? We talk a lot about the success Ubuntu has had with a single desktop model (with GNOME as their choice) in attracting new users, so it seems that there is a consensus that new users benefit from using GNOME.

If we want to grow the community, we have to attract new users as well as experienced users. Something to think about.

Ubuntu's popularity is not because of desktop choice but because of their supporting infrastructure. Active forums, mailing lists, documentation, publicity, plus it was one of the first well rounded distro's that allowed a live CD executed in a way that allowed the timid to kick the tires before making the leap in linux. Ubuntu's name probably has more to do with it's popularity then the choice of desktop as Kubuntu and Xubuntu, etc don't exactly roll off the tongue.

3. Perhaps rather than look at the user base/potential user base as "those who currently use openSUSE", we should look broader at how the desktops are split amongst all Linux distributions.

If we're interested in *growth*, then we have to look beyond the current user base and at who we wish to attract to using the distribution.

This also ties into the point someone (I apologise, I forget who) who mentioned the accessibility needs he has being better met by GNOME than KDE.

Jim

We are not worried about servicing the entire linux community, we are however worried about servicing the openSUSE community and as such should base decisions on their opinions. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Il giorno gio, 06/08/2009 alle 22.41 +0000, Jim Henderson ha scritto:

So we're not concerned about growing the openSUSE community or user base?

That means that openSUSE is poised for a decline, one way or the other.

Yes. At the moment it is, and it is not due to the default desktop choice, but on one side to the fact that openSUSE is stuck to what Novell needs, and on the other the community does not have enough resources in terms of contributors to keep it going ahead. In summary, there is no practical plan for its future, at least to my knowledge. The best I can think to is a project in "maintenance mode" right now.

If we have people leaving and aren't seeking users to replace those who leave for whatever reason, then the result is a net loss no matter how you look at it. If we don't build appeal into the broader Linux community (and into the general computing community), then we only stand to lose users no matter how you slice it, because there's *always* going to be someone leaving.

I agree. But how this can go step by step with the _divisive_ discussion on the default desktop is not clear. Best, A. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Jim Henderson wrote:

If you consider that the people we're talking about the pre-selection being made for are "new users who don't know what to pick", I think the argument is a bit stronger. I've only been a Linux user for about 15 years, and I wouldn't have known that this was in openFATE if it hadn't come up here.

So it's reasonable to assume that people who aren't active in the community (which may include many new users) wouldn't know about those surveys or have taken the time to participate in them.

Also, if the enhancement is perceived as being to benefit KDE users, GNOME users may well not feel it's appropriate to interject their opinion in the proposal because it appears to be a proposal for KDE. Not saying that it is, but that could be the light that some people see it in, which would skew the "voting".

I'm sorry but if you have a choice of a vocal community vs silent community it is the vocal community that you want to cater too. They are obviously more passionate about the project then the other community. An active community is exactly what the a distro needs. A wise man once said "If you don't vote, you have no right to bitch about the outcome". You can reasonably assume that both communities would have about the same amount percentage wise of the "unaware" or "uninformed" and as such that argument is a wash. Your seeing a skew in results putting a "best case" set of circumstances for one group vs the "worst case" set of circumstances on the other. If your going to try to interpret results put them on the same playing field.

So we're not concerned about growing the openSUSE community or user base?

That means that openSUSE is poised for a decline, one way or the other. If we have people leaving and aren't seeking users to replace those who leave for whatever reason, then the result is a net loss no matter how you look at it. If we don't build appeal into the broader Linux community (and into the general computing community), then we only stand to lose users no matter how you slice it, because there's *always* going to be someone leaving.

Jim

I can't see it declining at all, otherwise pretty much every other distro out there would be a sinking ship, which we all know is not the case. While there may be always someone leaving that gap can be filled with people who are no longer stuck with a decision they really have no idea about. This is not a case of practicing euthanasia on Gnome. The choice is still there, people can still select gnome if they want. It's a decision of what the gnome community likes to call "sensible defaults". Just like the installer has sensible defaults for filesystem, language, keyboard layout, etc. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Christian Jäger a écrit :

'confusing' choice away from novice users, they speak in favor of the _more_confusing_ and less newbie-friendly desktop

I agree with you that this thread is already too long, but your argument is plain ridiculous. Default Kde is not more (nor less) difficult to manage than Gnome (look at the "save as" Gnome windows, one of the ugliest thing I have ever seen, but Gnome have good points also). The more confusing thing is than nobody can completely get rid of Gnome or kde... but to see arguments, read again this thread, beginning with the original Post (of this present thread, for openFATE, there is an other thread) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.org http://news.opensuse.org/2009/04/13/people-of-opensuse-jean-daniel-dodin/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 9:33 PM, Rajko M. wrote:

I don't think that anybody will complain to have KDE style file chooser dialogs in both, KDE and GNOME

So far I have not said anything about this. But now I have to (and this mail made me to vote "No" on openFATE). I choose to use Gnome because I like Gnome. I DO NOT use Gnome to have the KDE style file chooser. We might have KDE as the default desktop (in the future) , but that should not mean that we should start to KDE'ify Gnome. If YOU would like a KDE file chooser in firefox then you have to make one, to my understanding the reason that the file chooser in firefox is the way it is, is because there is no other on linux. It would not be a problem in openSUSE to handle two different file choosers in firefox. Warm Regards (but not as warm as it usually is), Claes Backstrom -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hi Claes, On Saturday 08 August 2009 02:53:19 pm Claes Backstrom wrote:

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 9:33 PM, Rajko M. wrote:

...

I don't think that anybody will complain to have KDE style file chooser dialogs in both, KDE and GNOME

So far I have not said anything about this. But now I have to (and this mail made me to vote "No" on openFATE).

Well, I have mixed KDE/GTk interface. The nature of the choice for KDE as desktop, brings user benefit to learn GTk UI for free :-) No desktop per se is the best choice. There are and will be always applications that are better then DE native. The general idea is that it would be better to use better of both worlds. I would have nothing against GNOMEifing KDE desktop if that would be the better solution at the end, and I would rather have long discussions on particular issues, instead GNOME vs. KDE. First can help everybody and it is possible to solve, while the second is typical politics, opinions without details.

I choose to use Gnome because I like Gnome. I DO NOT use Gnome to have the KDE style file chooser. We might have KDE as the default desktop (in the future) , but that should not mean that we should start to KDE'ify Gnome. If YOU would like a KDE file chooser in firefox then you have to make one, to my understanding the reason that the file chooser in firefox is the way it is, is because there is no other on linux.

It is merely there is no other in GTk. and for SUSE in particular there was one, but it was dropped.

It would not be a problem in openSUSE to handle two different file choosers in firefox.

It is problem for me to handle that, and the Novell staff has no time allotted for that, so the problem is who is going to do that.

Warm Regards (but not as warm as it usually is), Claes Backstrom

GTk file chooser was once a good one, but then someone found time to tune up the interface and that made my life harder. I can't remember the old one in details, but I remember that difference was merely aesthetic one, while now with hidden functionality that you can use only if you know that is there, or by accident start typing something, it missed the main reason for GUI, ie. self advertising of functionality. What makes me not happy when I use Firefox is the print-to-file-dialog. I print to file often and clickety-click to change defaults is really step back to the previously used. I have to change file name, file type, target directory, every time. It is not using last user choices, even within the same session and the same web page. I bet they have viable explanation, but whatever it is, it doesn't help me much to feel better. -- Regards, Rajko (the same feelings as before) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am Sonntag, 9. August 2009 00:37:57 schrieb Christian Jäger:

Hi,

I really think GNOME will do better than the KDE file-chooser dialogue; not need to KDEify it.

http://linuxart.com/log/archives/2009/07/24/nautilus-streamlined/

You did notice that this looks more like the kde file-chooser then the normal gtk one? Even though I have to admit the kde dialog is missing the filter bar, that would be way more useful then the current 'zoom' slider... Karsten

Am Samstag, den 08.08.2009, 17:05 -0500 schrieb Rajko M.:

...

I would have nothing against GNOMEifing KDE desktop if that would be the better solution at the end, and I would rather have long discussions on particular issues, instead GNOME vs. KDE. First can help everybody and it is possible to solve, while the second is typical politics, opinions without details.

...

I choose to use Gnome because I like Gnome. I DO NOT use Gnome to have the KDE style file chooser. We might have KDE as the default desktop (in the future) , but that should not mean that we should start to KDE'ify Gnome. If YOU would like a KDE file chooser in firefox then you have to make one, to my understanding the reason that the file chooser in firefox is the way it is, is because there is no other on linux. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Saturday 08 August 2009 05:53:26 pm Christian Jäger wrote:

What I meant to say: if anyone wants to invest work into the Gtk file-chooser dialogue there is a perfectly great suggestion of where this should lead. No need to re-invent the wheel (or borrow one from KDE).

Investing work in something like that is kind of reinventing the wheel, in a sense of wasted time. The openSUSE has both sets of libraries, GTk and Qt, and if one desktop has something already developed, why under the Sun is necessary that the other spend time to code the same. To produce lesser bloat? That is noble idea, but I already have a bloat if I want to use the best of Linux world, and sincerely it doesn't stop with GTk and Qt libs, there are more that are used. -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 07 of August 2009, Christian Jäger wrote:

Now, to set some logic straight: - If this really was about making things simpler for _new_ users, the default desktop should be GNOME, not KDE.

It is not. It is about the perception in the KDE community that it is not treated fairly. The UI itself, even though it is part of the problem, is not significant in comparison to that. Especially since according to the statistics we have only a low number of new users anyway. What you mistakenly see as a contradiction is different people expressing their opinion and some of them valuing more new users than (existing or potential) contributors.

- If this is about a majority of the userbase demanding special treatment for _their_ desktop of choice come on out and say so openly, but don't use a transparent pretext, pretending this was all for the good of the project.

It is about the minority of the userbase not demanding special treatment for their desktop of choice. Or anybody else for that matter. But since you seem to so much believe in how you see the situation that you not only disagree with the position of the other side (which would be ok) but you don't even know what the position is, there is apparently no point in discussing this with you. -- Lubos Lunak KDE developer -------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. e-mail: l.lunak@suse.cz , l.lunak@kde.org Lihovarska 1060/12 tel: +420 284 084 672 190 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

Am Freitag, den 07.08.2009, 10:45 +0100 schrieb Michael Meeks:

Well, many different arguments have been put for this change; but IMHO doing this to salve a KDE community perception problem is perhaps the lamest rational I've heard.

Indeed, are there not other, more constructive ways to improve people's perception of openSUSE ? Do you not agree that the immediate perception problem can be in part addressed by a more fair ordering (based on popularity), and more helpful descriptive text explaining that ?

Indeed, the whole issue seems so pathetic, so pettiful to me, that I cannot believe this is what it's really about. In the end, we will probably have KDE at the top and no default - as has been the case for the Live-CDs all the time. And have GNOME users been complaining about this 'preference' for KDE? I think not. I for one would feel petty if I were complaining about such a thing. And even if it wasn't petty, one doesn't complain about not getting a bigger share of the cake than one's little brother! One doesn't demand that the leader of a group must be a man when there's more men than women in a group! And one certainly doesn't say that the other party doesn't DESERVE equal treatment because it is smaller! If we are to continue living and working in the same (openSUSE) community we all must practice good neighbourship and be civil with each other. Greets, Chris -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

(Replying to the last mail from the thread, but this is not a reply to Lubos; and this is my last mail today on the topic) Can everybody please calm down, and at least wait 30 minutes before replying to mails on this thread? Most replies at the moment are just stating the same things again and again; it's fine to have a discussion where people disagree, and it's fine to accept it as such. Being the last one to give your arguments again won't make you the "winner" of the debate. I'll just point out that this thread has been dividing our community, wasting our time and energy (since everybody keeps replying), and is definitely harming us right now. I'm quite hopeful that this is not what people want to achieve here (or maybe I'm just naive?). I for one definitely want to send a positive message to (and from) our community, I want it to be friendly, welcoming and inclusive. Thanks, Vincent PS: people who'll interpret this message as "there should be no default", or "the default should be X" should read it again. And again. Thanks. -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Christian Jäger wrote:

Sadly it becomes more and more clear that the whole argumentation in favor of a KDE-default is just a pretext for a powerstruggle.

KDE-proponents keep contradicting themselves:The original argument is that they don't want to confuse poor new users by 'too much choice' on the issue of a desktop environment. But whenever it comes down to WHICH desktop environment should be defaulted in order to take this 'confusing' choice away from novice users, they speak in favor of the _more_confusing_ and less newbie-friendly desktop, on the base that the existing userbase prefers KDE - or at least that those users who do shout louder than those who use GNOME ('more vocal part of the community').

Now, to set some logic straight: - If this really was about making things simpler for _new_ users, the default desktop should be GNOME, not KDE. - In actuality, this choice is not something that you can make for the user: that choice is comparable to the choice between Windows and Mac OS. You DON'T make that choice FOR the user. - If this is about a majority of the userbase demanding special treatment for _their_ desktop of choice come on out and say so openly, but don't use a transparent pretext, pretending this was all for the good of the project.

BTW, I haven't seen any mention of this before: How do KDE-proponents feel about the KDE Live-CD actually being the DEFAULT choice for download at software.opensuse.org? Not discriminated there, are you?

I find this all extremely disheartening. Seems to me the motivation behind this devisive undertaking it a grudge that some of the original KDE-SuSE userbase have been bearing eversince Novell bought SuSE and brought in Ximian's GNOME-devs. Now this digruntled older part of the SUSE-community are trying to 'get back' against Novell.

Anyway, it is hard to retain a feeling of 'community' with KDE users who are bullying GNOME users in such a way. But those KDE-users who seem to be venting a grudge here don't seem to have much regard for that community which is bigger than the KDE-part of openSUSE.

That is ridiculous, the opensuse KDE desktop is no easier and no harder to learn and operate than the opensuse Gnome desktop. If i were to take uop your divisive line are arument I would counter by insinuating that KDE should be chosen because it is the technically more proficient of the two, which is exactly what you are arguing in reverse. I don't believe that. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 07 August 2009 04:51:40 am Christian Jäger wrote:

As said, you CAN'T make the choice of desktop FOR the user because the choice between two desktop environments is as basic as the decision between Windows and Linux. It influences everything from workflow to look & feel.

The day user bought computer nobody asked him what he/she want to use, so it is possible to make the choice for the user. Is that fair? From support provider point of view, that is absolutely the only proper way. Do I prefer one DE over the other, the answer is yes, but not that much that I will not mention that there is many options, with 2 distinctive leaders GNOME and KDE, but I would explain that I can provide help for KDE, and leave user to decide. I'm aware that such explanation wasn't really giving a choice, but should I follow all desktops to be able to help every possible choice. I don't think so. BTW, I already got the question why is GNOME listed first (none of users noticed that is none preselected), and you can imagine that my explanation did not include alphabet ordering. -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Jim Henderson wrote:

Posit: GNOME users are generally (though not always) new users and non- technical users at that.

Mailing lists, forums, etc where the discussions are largely *technical* in nature are not likely to draw that part of the userbase into the discussion because most of the discussion is over their heads.

Creating a situation where people are unlikely to know or are unwilling to participate because they won't understand 99% of the discussion and then saying "well, if you don't participate, too bad for you" is a *great* way to disenfranchise those users while appearing to be looking at the issue in a democratic manner.

Let's make sure we're not doing that and at least giving those people a chance to have a voice before we declare them as being dispassionate and uninterested in the future of the distro.

I'm sorry but you are assuming a lot of things. Gnome users are just as tech savy as the next user ranging in expertise from new user to guru. To suggest otherwise is just plain insulting. Mailing lists and forums are full of new users asking simple things as well, I would suggest you actually read some before drawing your conclusion. In the case of openFATE and especially on the issue of a KDE default there is next to no technical knowledge needed to express one's feelings.

And as I've said, I've no problem if the KDE camp is willing to commit that GNOME stays on the menu. I've yet to see *anyone* from that camp say that they find that agreeable.

Jim

No one is saying remove Gnome from the selection screen. If that's what you are thinking then you should really re-read the complete thread. We are talking about having a preselected desktop. It does not prohibit you from changing if desired. Again stop trying to make this into a "death to gnome" topic. Dean Hilkewich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Jim Henderson wrote:

On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:42:53 -0600, Dean Hilkewich wrote:

I understand that, and have understood that from the beginning. I also see the potential for the KDE "camp" to say "well, GNOME is the minority choice, KDE is now the default, the next logical step is to move GNOME to 'other' or to remove it completely from the distribution." The same logic being used to fight for the KDE Default selection can be used to push those other agendas as well.

Will has said that my proposal is acceptable, and knowing now that he's one of the KDE dev team (which I didn't realise before), that satisfies me that the team won't push for that in the future.

See your making up agenda's that do not exist. You're trying to plant a seed of conspiracy that is not there and basing all your arguments on that trying to make the KDE guys look like conspirators in a NWO setting. This is not the case. Never has been. This isn't the Minority Report. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Dean Hilkewich wrote:

See your making up agenda's that do not exist. You're trying to plant a seed of conspiracy that is not there and basing all your arguments on that trying to make the KDE guys look like conspirators in a NWO setting. This is not the case. Never has been. This isn't the Minority Report.

Dean

being worried about thin-end-of-the-wedge suggestions is not an unreasonable worry, and to be fair Jim has come up with the most rational compromise i've seen proposed by the Gnome side. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, 08 Aug 2009 16:50:58 +0200, Will Stephenson wrote:

underline my (and the rest of the openSUSE's KDE community's) commitment not to remove choice by making it harder to choose GNOME.

Thanks for the re-confirmation, Will - I hadn't realized your involvement before. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:40:26 +0100, Matt Gray wrote:

Although i am just a user, I believe i have just agreed to everything you suggested and more, and to be honest i haven't seen anyone asking for Gnome to be removed as an obvious 'choice' in desktop selection.

If a preselected default is selected, i believe the following would be sensible:

[x] KDE (officially supported) [_] Gnome (officially supported) [_] Other (other available DE's)

i think this meets your requirements?

Yes, it does - that is in fact the suggestion that I made a few days ago, provided that there were assurances that GNOME wouldn't be removed as an obvious choice (I like that wording, BTW, not what I used, but much more succinct). As I explained to Dean (I think it was) a couple e-mails ago, the logic being used to push the "KDE Default" idea could be applied to stripping GNOME from the distro (and various intermediary steps leading up to that), so I feel it's reasonable to have assurances that the logic won't be used that way. As long as those assurances are in place, I'm fine with it. Caveat: I speak only for myself, I'm not an official voice of the GNOME community by any stretch. :-) And there's no "just a user" - I also am "just a user" in that I don't do any development work on the distro. User input is extremely important, and it's good that all users are at least represented. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:26:54 +0100, Matt Gray wrote:

yes you can say exactly that, because opensuse should be principly interested in servicing the wants and needs of its community.

One of those needs is the need to grow the community, no? If that's the case, then you have to look at where those users *come from* and consider that in your final analysis.

Novell don't make "everybody" linux, they lead opensuse linux, and opensuse users have a clear 2:1 preference in favour of KDE.

That's today. And it seems that at least some believe that setting KDE as a default desktop is a way to ensure that kind of balance remains. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am Freitag, den 07.08.2009, 12:50 +0200 schrieb Martin Schlander:

And the last three or so years of (subtly) pushing GNOME haven't exactly been very succesful have they?

And leveraging the existing community to become more succesful, instead of working against it, as has been the practice in recent years.

I read it but I cannot believe my eyes. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Jim Henderson wrote:

You misunderstand my point. I don't doubt that there are more KDE users than GNOME users, but I wonder if the gap isn't less large than it seems. While you can look at download stats, mailing lists, etc, the fact of the matter is that unless you survey every user who runs openSUSE, you can't have an accurate picture of what the balance *is*. Yes, you can have a good idea, or a high degree of certainty. That's not the same as knowing the precise distribution of choices.

And then there are those who use both, or use applications built on both. Like me. I use things like k3b, k9copy, and Quantas+, but use a GNOME desktop. There are those who use both desktops as well. How do they fit in the picture, when you look at the picture as either/or?

OK now that is really grasping at straws. Do you choose BOTH desktops upon install? I think not. A pre-selection does not in anyway prohibit your ability to continue using apps like k3b, k9copy etc in Gnome. Stop trying to make this appears as a death march on gnome. Dean Hilkewich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Jim Henderson wrote:

On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:31:56 -0600, Dean Hilkewich wrote:

...

OK now that is really grasping at straws. Do you choose BOTH desktops upon install? I think not. A pre-selection does not in anyway prohibit your ability to continue using apps like k3b, k9copy etc in Gnome. Stop trying to make this appears as a death march on gnome.

I install both desktops, yes. And I'm *not* trying to make this "appear as a death march on GNOME." If you're interpreting it that way, well, I can't do much to change that perception other than to say that that's not my point of view here.

Jim

Please do tell how you select 2 desktops on the desktop selection screen. Last time I checked if you click on one the other deselects. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Jim Henderson wrote:

It's been a while since I did my installation, but IIRC, I did the advanced package selection and picked both there.

Jim

Exactly, you cannot do it on the desktop selection screen. Nobody is implying that the advance package selection screen be done away with or getting rid of options. We are talking about defaults. Having KDE as a default will not change that capability in any way, shape or fashion. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Jim Henderson wrote:

Agreed. But *if* (and I concede that it's a big IF) down the road a proposal hits that suggests that "well, GNOME users can go into advanced package selection and install GNOME that way if they want it, so go ahead and remove GNOME from the advance package selection screen", I would like to see a good assurance that isn't going to happen because the same logic being used for the default argument could be used to make that argument as well.

So as long as there's an assurance that this logic won't be used to push that KDE agenda further, then as I've repeatedly said, I'm fine with the default being set to KDE.

Jim

That's a subject that should be dealt with IF it ever does come up. Until that time, the end of the world scenario's should wait as they are pure speculation. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Fredag den 7. august 2009 20:34:39 skrev Jim Henderson:

On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:20:12 -0600, Dean Hilkewich wrote:

...

That's a subject that should be dealt with IF it ever does come up.

That's one possible opinion, yes - but I personally would rather see some assurances that if I (as a GNOME user) am going to give a little now, I'm not going to be asked to give more and more and more down the road.

AJ already covered that in his good first draft for a desktop policy, when he started this thread. "2. We make it easy to choose between these two desktops during installation, install both of them - or install others as well." -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Jim Henderson wrote:

...

install both of them - or install others as well."

Yep, and that's good by me.

Jim

That's a horrible idea. Bloat city. The "everything including the kitchen sink" approach would drastically hurt openSUSE's rep even further. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Jim Henderson wrote:

And yet the threat of not having KDE be the default selection is so great....because? There again, you can't have it both ways. I still stand by my earlier proposal (ie, that as long as the KDE camp concedes that it's OK for GNOME to be on that selection menu in the installation and won't push for it to be removed from the menu or the distro in the future, I'm OK with a KDE default selection and even having KDE listed first), but this debate reminds me a lot of another rather politically charged debate currently going on in the US because the side with the stronger opinions expresses those opinions by applying two inherently contradictory sets of principles.

Jim

I'm not in the "kde camp", i am just a user, but even i can see the sense of and agree to abide by the following: 1) I the user recognize that opensuse provides equal support to both Gnome & KDE because they are both equally viable DE's. 2) I the user respect that even if I disagreed with the premise of #1 that opensuse will stick with that policy. (which i don't) 3) Opensuse benefits from providing equal support to the main DE's, and going backward to a one DE distro would be stupid. 4) If a default is selected then the other equally supported DE should be prominently displayed on the install screen, and not filed away with "Other". 5) Novell have a commitment to Gnome as a result of their commercial suse products, so it isn't ever going away. (which is a good thing) If, and only if it is decided that a pre-selected default is chosen as the best course for opensuse then your suggestion: "I'm OK with a KDE default selection and even having KDE listed first" Would be the most sensible way to proceed. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Jim Henderson wrote:

1. "Most popular" is a difficult metric. Some suggest that KDE is the most popular based on the older user survey, and that because the openFATE request mirrors this, that makes it a valid figure. However, I'm sure that not all users are aware of the openFATE request or the user survey (this is the first I'd heard of either of them, in fact). At best the survey and the request represent the opinions of the majority of people who know about them, which may or may not be a reasonable sampling of the user community at large.

2. However, that flexibility comes at a cost of complexity that can (not necessarily "is", but "can") be daunting to a new user. So if the argument is to make a choice for new users, shouldn't we look not at the use case for "the popular choice in the community" but rather "what suits a new user coming from Windows or another platform best"? We talk a lot about the success Ubuntu has had with a single desktop model (with GNOME as their choice) in attracting new users, so it seems that there is a consensus that new users benefit from using GNOME.

3. If we're interested in *growth*, then we have to look beyond the current user base and at who we wish to attract to using the distribution.

Jim

1. seems to me you are try really hard to invalidate the only useful figures we have on desktop choice..........? 2. no, the consensus is that Ubuntu has a reputation for ease of use, there is no consensus on how that reputation was received, and certainly no consensus agreeing that it is because of Gnome. 3. very much agreed. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org