On 18 April 2017 at 17:04, Richard Brown
On 18 April 2017 at 16:45, Todd Rme
wrote: On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 10:39 AM, Richard Brown
wrote: On 18 April 2017 at 16:28, Todd Rme
wrote: On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 10:11 AM, Tomas Chvatal
wrote: Hello all,
Given the latest thread about the desktop on our bellowed factory mailing list I would like to propose the following:
"Desktop selection dialogue won't have preselected any default value."
We already had an enormous discussion about this when the decision was made to select KDE as the default some years back. Please look at the mailing list discussions on the topic. If, after reading those discussion you have something to add, please explain what that is. But repeating the exact same arguments that were made when the decision was originally adopted isn't going to benefit anyone.
I think the argument that 'we made a decision in the past' is not a valid counter to Tomas' suggestion.
Things change, KDE has changed, GNOME has changed, the linux desktop ecosystem has changed, the Project in particular has changed dramatically.
When that decision was made we offered one distribution, with a key audience clearly being 'new linux users'. We are now a project that offers two distributions, clearly stateing our target audience is "SysAdmins, Developers, and Power Users".
I will reserve my opinion on this topic for now, because I want to join the conversation after others have had an opportunity to share their opinion.
But I will counter any suggestion that this is not a valid discussion. It is, and it should be encouraged and engaged with, not dismissed.
I didn't say it was a counter, I said that this discussion shouldn't just repeat the exact same arguments that were already made. If Thomas has something new to add to the discussion, that is fine. But repeating the exact same discussion over and over doesn't help anybody.
Okay, I do not intend to speak for Tomas, and to be frank I do not like the personal tone you're taking with this.
I can think of some obvious 'new' things that have changed in the Linux desktop ecosystem in the last 8 years since the last discussion on this topic
- KDE 5 Plasma was released - MeeGo was released and died - GNOME 3 was released - LXQt was released and added to openSUSE - MATE was released and added to openSUSE - Enlightenment was added to openSUSE - openSUSE went from offering 3 desktop environments to 7 - GNOME became the de-facto default in all major distributions besides openSUSE (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS) - GNOME became the default in all commercial linux distributions (RHEL, SLE, Ubuntu) - KDE stopped being the default in all of the top 25 Distrowatch distros except openSUSE and PCLinuxOS - openSUSE's KDE maintainers became a totally volunteer group - openSUSE went from a singular distribution targeting new users to two distributions aiming for a more technically savvy sysadmin/dev/power user audience
Any one of the above facts would be new justification for Tomas to bring this topic up again.
Instead I've been able to list 12 justifications without spending much time to think about it.
Can we move on from the pointless, disrespectful debate as to whether or not Tomas is allowed to raise a topic, and actually discuss the topic?
And to follow up my objective unemotional view as to why we should be allowed to discuss this with my opinion on the topic: I agree with Tomas' proposal Given the above facts, I think the situation within the openSUSE project and the wider Linux distribution ecosystem demands we consider Tomas' idea I think actively deciding to not have a default is the correct choice for the openSUSE project given the nature of the project, the contributions for 7 desktop environments and god-knows how many Window Managers. I realise that no default still does not sit well with what the 'majority' of our 'competition' are doing. It also does not sit well with my personal desktop of choice for myself. But I think we can justify that as a united "we're openSUSE and we do stuff differently". I think that position is easier to take as a united, cohesive project who should ALL be able to support the idea of 'no default', vs the current situation where our volunteer KDE team have to shoulder an unfair burden of peoples expectations because of a tickbox in an installer that does not reflect the actual diverse nature of our project. If we're going to be different from the rest of the world, I feel it is best for everyone that we choose a path the whole project can get behind, not just a small team of half a dozen volunteers. As Chairman of the project I additionally remain fearful that we are probably only one nasty flamewar away from enough of our KDE team being demotivated or quitting to threaten openSUSE's ability to offer KDE as a default. They're volunteers. The current situation is a lot of burden on their shoulders. Over the last years we've had enough "close calls" where tensions have raised, KDE contributors have openly discussed stepping back from contributing. In those cases I have felt compelled to intervene to help support our KDE team to avoid such a circumstance, but I do not feel confident that I can always be there or always do enough to help if it happens again. I have long wished for a solution that would reduce the likelihood of such an incident affecting openSUSE. Shifting from a 'KDE default' Project to a 'No default' Project would do that. Speaking unemotionally and openly, I also see how shifting to a 'no default' project would potentially reduce the impact on openSUSE from any future KDE problems, in our team or upstream, which I also think is a strategic benefit, if not exactly a nice thought to have. Shifting to 'no default' clearly and publicly should allow us to gain attention aligned to the ways the Project is actually already operating, and should discourage people from having unfair expectations from any one desktop of openSUSE. This is a very important factor in ensuring openSUSE and all of its desktop environments are noticed, considered, praised, and reviewed on their own merits, not because of some arbitrary decision that made sense 8 years ago but no longer reflects the reality of what openSUSE offers in 2017. So to summarise, my opinion is not that we should consider Tomas' idea, but that we must implement it. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org