[opensuse-project] Default desktop: the Belgian solution
In Belgium we have often this kind of endless discussions but not about desktops but about languages. As you know there are three officials languages (Dutch, French and German) and amongst them two main ones (Dutch and French). A bit like our desktop, Xfce being the German language ;-) Some National Institutions have their name in two languages like the Opera in Brussels "La Monnaie" (FR) or "De Munt" (NL). To make everyone happy they've decided for the marketing and other public communications to use one year the naming "De Munt - La Monnaie" and the one after "La Monnaie - De Munt" and so on for years. As some KDE users feel unhappy that the Gnome desktop appears first on the list during the installation let me propose this: - For 11.2 lets place KDE first - For 11.3 lets place Gnome first - For 12.0 lets place KDE first and so on... And if another Desktop (Moblin, Xfce?) becomes mainstream, let see later. Of course, none of them should be preselected. My experience with firends is that if they don't know, they click on the first one. Hope that it can help positively to put an end to this never ending discussion. Regards to all KDE, Gnome and other openSUSE lovers, Djan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Jean Cayron wrote:
Hope that it can help positively to put an end to this never ending discussion.
How about adding a simple random generator which picks one of the environments? :-) SCNR -- Best Regards / S pozdravom, Pavol RUSNAK SUSE LINUX, s.r.o openSUSE Community Multiplier Team Lihovarska 1060/12 PGP 0xA6917144 19000 Praha 9, CR prusnak[at]suse.cz http://www.suse.cz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On 03.08.2009, at 18:07, Pavol Rusnak wrote:
Jean Cayron wrote:
Hope that it can help positively to put an end to this never ending discussion.
How about adding a simple random generator which picks one of the environments? :-)
I like the idea of Jean, switching the default desktop every release. And I like Pavols random-default :-) This are two good ways to face this problem. Cheers, Rob
SCNR
-- Best Regards / S pozdravom,
Pavol RUSNAK SUSE LINUX, s.r.o openSUSE Community Multiplier Team Lihovarska 1060/12 PGP 0xA6917144 19000 Praha 9, CR prusnak[at]suse.cz http://www.suse.cz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
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Am Montag, 3. August 2009 schrieb Jean Cayron:
[...] Some National Institutions have their name in two languages like the Opera in Brussels "La Monnaie" (FR) or "De Munt" (NL). To make everyone happy they've decided for the marketing and other public communications to use one year the naming "De Munt - La Monnaie" and the one after "La Monnaie - De Munt" and so on for years. [...]
Hehe, I had the same idea. In Germany, the same holds true for the naming of low- and high-pressure areas, one year the (bad) low-preasure areas get female names and the other year, they get male names. Gruß Jan -- The first myth of management is that it exists. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Monday 03 of August 2009, Jean Cayron wrote:
As some KDE users feel unhappy that the Gnome desktop appears first on the list during the installation let me propose this: - For 11.2 lets place KDE first - For 11.3 lets place Gnome first - For 12.0 lets place KDE first and so on... And if another Desktop (Moblin, Xfce?) becomes mainstream, let see later. Of course, none of them should be preselected. My experience with firends is that if they don't know, they click on the first one.
Hope that it can help positively to put an end to this never ending discussion.
I'm afraid it cannot. Assuming you are serious about this, then this does not actually change almost anything. It mitigates a small part of the problem but it creates new ones (would there be somebody who would not laugh at us for this?) and it doesn't solve the primary problem. It was a mistake to present the UI itself as a problem, as that is just a demonstration of the underlying problem. Please see the "my KDE summary" mail from me, 3rd paragraph especially. The problem is there is a perception that openSUSE does not treat KDE even at least equally as GNOME, because GNOME is artificially elevated to they-are-both-default status with KDE, even though this is nowhere else done in openSUSE. The official message to KDE "you are equally welcome in openSUSE" conflicts with openSUSE granting special rights to KDE's competing project that are not granted to any other project included in openSUSE. Trying to alter the UI that demonstrates the problem with this UI non-solution may be instead interpreted as an attempt at ridiculing the actual problem. The actual problem might be probably also solved by openSUSE doing something else in KDE's favour that would compensate the special treating GNOME has (bad example:granting KDE more places in the openSUSE board than GNOME), but that is very likely a bad path to choose. First of all it would be hard to come up with a good compensation (that is why the example is bad) and second it would be better to simplify things instead of complicating them. There is of course also the option to remove the exception by requiring users to make their choice also in other areas, in which case this one exception would cease being an exception, but I don't think we would improve openSUSE by dialogs suddenly losing the preselections. Therefore it is better to remove the special priviledge "the most popular and the second most popular desktops must be presented without a preselection during install" and stick with the "most preferred choice is preselected" rule that is applied everywhere else. That will very likely remove the perception that openSUSE favours GNOME more (because it is no longer granted any exceptions) and should confirm the official message that KDE is equally welcome in openSUSE (because then KDE would be treated like all most-preferred choices in openSUSE). Of course, this is probably not what GNOME people would want, but at the same time, this is not what some KDE people would want either. There are ones that believe KDE's position in openSUSE entitles it for the right to be the desktop focus of openSUSE and that openSUSE would benefit more from that than from supporting two desktops equally. So what is written above is a compromise (definitely at least for some). And I personally believe it is a good solution for the current problem. -- 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
Sent from Kevin Yeaux's mobile device. On Aug 3, 2009, at 1:01 PM, Lubos Lunak <l.lunak@suse.cz> wrote:
On Monday 03 of August 2009, Jean Cayron wrote:
As some KDE users feel unhappy that the Gnome desktop appears first on the list during the installation let me propose this: - For 11.2 lets place KDE first - For 11.3 lets place Gnome first - For 12.0 lets place KDE first and so on... And if another Desktop (Moblin, Xfce?) becomes mainstream, let see later. Of course, none of them should be preselected. My experience with firends is that if they don't know, they click on the first one.
Hope that it can help positively to put an end to this never ending discussion.
I'm afraid it cannot. Assuming you are serious about this, then this does not actually change almost anything. It mitigates a small part of the problem but it creates new ones (would there be somebody who would not laugh at us for this?) and it doesn't solve the primary problem.
It was a mistake to present the UI itself as a problem, as that is just a demonstration of the underlying problem. Please see the "my KDE summary" mail from me, 3rd paragraph especially. The problem is there is a perception that openSUSE does not treat KDE even at least equally as GNOME, because GNOME is artificially elevated to they-are-both-default status with KDE, even though this is nowhere else done in openSUSE. The official message to KDE "you are equally welcome in openSUSE" conflicts with openSUSE granting special rights to KDE's competing project that are not granted to any other project included in openSUSE. Trying to alter the UI that demonstrates the problem with this UI non-solution may be instead interpreted as an attempt at ridiculing the actual problem.
The actual problem might be probably also solved by openSUSE doing something else in KDE's favour that would compensate the special treating GNOME has (bad example:granting KDE more places in the openSUSE board than GNOME), but that is very likely a bad path to choose. First of all it would be hard to come up with a good compensation (that is why the example is bad) and second it would be better to simplify things instead of complicating them. There is of course also the option to remove the exception by requiring users to make their choice also in other areas, in which case this one exception would cease being an exception, but I don't think we would improve openSUSE by dialogs suddenly losing the preselections.
Therefore it is better to remove the special priviledge "the most popular and the second most popular desktops must be presented without a preselection during install" and stick with the "most preferred choice is preselected" rule that is applied everywhere else. That will very likely remove the perception that openSUSE favours GNOME more (because it is no longer granted any exceptions) and should confirm the official message that KDE is equally welcome in openSUSE (because then KDE would be treated like all most-preferred choices in openSUSE).
Of course, this is probably not what GNOME people would want, but at the same time, this is not what some KDE people would want either. There are ones that believe KDE's position in openSUSE entitles it for the right to be the desktop focus of openSUSE and that openSUSE would benefit more from that than from supporting two desktops equally. So what is written above is a compromise (definitely at least for some). And I personally believe it is a good solution for the current problem.
-- 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
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Sent from Kevin Yeaux's mobile device. On Aug 3, 2009, at 1:01 PM, Lubos Lunak <l.lunak@suse.cz> wrote: The problem is there is a perception that
openSUSE does not treat KDE even at least equally as GNOME, because GNOME is artificially elevated to they-are-both-default status with KDE, even though this is nowhere else done in openSUSE. The official message to KDE "you are equally welcome in openSUSE" conflicts with openSUSE granting special rights to KDE's competing project that are not granted to any other project included in openSUSE. Trying to alter the UI that demonstrates the problem with this UI non-solution may be instead interpreted as an attempt at ridiculing the actual problem.
Now this statement purplexes me, and perhaps I'm reading into this wrong, and if I am please correct me, but are you saying that some members of the KDE camp feel that because they are not the default, preselected desktop of openSUSE, and instead we give the user the option of two equally supported desktops at installation time (or download time with the Live edition), that we're giving the GNOME camp "special treatment" because we have them at the same level? That sounds like the popular crowd at a high school being bitter because a band geek won homecoming queen (note to GNOME Team: sorry for comparing y'all to band geeks. I'll sneak in a cheap dig at the KDE team, don't worry ;-) ). To me, it brings a whole arguement about usability, support, and whats in the best interest of a new user down to petty politics. I actually agree: openSUSE should choose and focus their efforts on one desktop, one UI. But since we've gone down this road of two UIs, we've got to stick with it until a better solution comes along (or one desktop defeats another in usability and innovation, which is unlikely to happen). In the meantime, the best solution is to have a fair treatment of both desktops, and don't select one by default. I agree, though, that we should make the decision process easier: in fact, one thing I'm gonna begin working on in a few weeks (and with some help, will have done for the 11.2 launch) is a quick tour of each desktop, written by the respective teams, to introduce new openSUSE users to our KDE and GNOME, which should help new users. And on your last point: you mentioned that the Project grants special rights to the GNOME Team that no other project has in openSUSE. What special rights? I work pretty closely with the GNOME team, and I don't know what those rights are. -- Kevin "Yeaux" Dupuy Hating the iPhone mailer, every day :-) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
participants (6)
-
Jan Ritzerfeld -
Jean Cayron -
Kevin "Yeaux" Dupuy -
Lubos Lunak -
Pavol Rusnak -
Robert Lihm