Hi, Il giorno lun, 03/08/2009 alle 01.09 +0200, Lubos Lunak ha scritto:
The openFATE request says "make KDE the default desktop" and it doesn't request anything else. It doesn't request anything happening with GNOME, in fact it explicitly mentions that it should remain supported as a choice. It can be interpreted in slightly different ways, my personal interpretation is that this can be achieved by just preselecting KDE in the installation dialog, nothing more. I consider it to be the minimum acceptable for the request and at the same time I believe it can bring the benefits described.
I would say everyone agrees with the idea that preselecting the checkbox would not make, formally, any difference. I am personally more worried by how this can be used in marketing and in discussions about openSUSE. For example, I don't think it is a good idea to market openSUSE, as someone suggested, as a "KDE-centric distribution". It would maybe increase somewhat users on the KDE side, but it would also damage GNOME, quite clearly.
An important point that many people here fail to realize that this is not asking for granting a special priviledge to KDE. In fact, it is asking for removing a special priviledge that makes many in the KDE community feel that KDE is treated unequally in openSUSE. In all other cases, when there is a clear preference, it is selected as a default, sometimes not even offering the user an easy choice. In this case, however, while KDE is the clear choice in the openSUSE community, it is not treated the same like in other cases. Instead, GNOME is given a priviledge that a preference must be explicitly expressed here, and this priviledge, to my knowledge, is not given to any other openSUSE component. No other non-default browser, mailer, shell, filesystem, etc. has this luxury. This is interpreted by the KDE community as a message from openSUSE that it values GNOME more, that GNOME is forcibly pushed into openSUSE and that KDE is not equally welcome in openSUSE. The openFATE request, in practice, asks for removing this GNOME priviledge and fair treating of all openSUSE components.
You are literally stretching it so much it sounds a joke. According to you, not selecting KDE by default is a privilege for GNOME, but selecting KDE by default does not represent a priviledge. It does not make any sense. As it does not make any sense what you write about filesysems, shells and other defaults, which are not chosen as default to my knowledge because of the openSUSE survey, but because they are used by the vast majority of Linux distributions.
This should also make it obvious that the current situation is not considered correct.
What is not correct is to base this proposal on a survey which has no real statistical value. In addition it is also outdated, and based (if I remember right) on the pre-kde4 period. I'm clearly not going to claim GNOME is now more used than KDE, but I would think its share increased again.
Since now openSUSE positions itself as an open community distribution, refusing this openFATE request would also be an action that would further stress the perception that the KDE community is not as welcome in openSUSE as the GNOME community and that openSUSE can again choose to hurt the KDE majority despite the obvious preference. Therefore, just as there is the risk that aknowledging KDE's position in openSUSE by accepting the openFATE request would have a negative impact on the GNOME community, there is also the risk that continuing to treat GNOME specially in openSUSE would have a negative impact on the larger KDE community, already treated negatively.
I asked you evidences about these damages in another reply. We all remember the discussions about making GNOME default pushed by someone at Novell some year ago. I personally was against that. I'm also against making KDE default, for exactly the same reasons. The current situation _works_. OpenSUSE is probably the only distribution with equally clean GNOME and KDE, just use the current situation when marketing openSUSE. Reopening this discussion is trying to bring things back.
For similar reasons I believe that the pros/cons analysis in the original thread is partially incorrect, as it assumes that the current situation is not problematic and keeping the status quo does not cause any harm, or that resolving the situation requires removing choices. And yes, I believe that just changing the radio button would be a sufficient message from openSUSE that KDE is not considered less important than GNOME, likely resulting in increased KDE interest and involvement with openSUSE that could even lead to openSUSE becoming an outstanding KDE distribution, without having to negatively affect GNOME in the process.
I actually don't think openSUSE KDE implementation is considered bad. OpenSUSE popularity is affected by more general problems, and it would be off-topic to explain them here. However it is really more frequent to say to people that openSUSE has a good GNOME implementation, simply because openSUSE is still associated to KDE by many users.
So, once again, the openFATE request is not about granting KDE any special advantage, nor it requests doing anything with GNOME other than removing this advantage that is considered unjust. It is about signalling the KDE community that they are not treated as 2nd class citizens in openSUSE, which would prevent further alienating of the KDE community and allow increase KDE involvement in openSUSE, currently hampered by the perception that this is not as welcome as GNOME involvement. And while it is considered that focusing openSUSE more on KDE would bring openSUSE more advantages, it is not necessary for KDE, nor any removal of choice of GNOME in openSUSE.
This is not about treating KDE users as second class citizens. They are already not treated as such. I have some difficulty to see why contributors are actually blocked now, and can become suddenly more interested by selecting a radio button during the installation. Is there any actual contributor that explicitly said "I do not contribute because of that"? Did anyone actually say it would be more interested in contributing if the default DE were KDE?
This is my interpretation of the openFATE request and the position of the KDE community on this issue and what would be the minimum acceptable to make them actually feel welcome also by openSUSE acts and not just words. As I said, different people have slightly different views, so there are certainly people who have stronger views on this or would disagree with me somewhere (in fact, my own personal opinion here is not exactly in line with this, so am I not just pushing my personal agenda). I however hope this gives an overview and explains some things that many people seem to misunderstand. If you want to have a complete view, of course, enjoy reading the whole thread. In the worst case I've at least saved you reading my mails there :).
Well, the fact you feel the need to summarize the discussion, smooth it to make it more acceptable ("it's not my personal agenda") and write quite a long message on this topic, which is quite unimportant for the future of the distribution speaks by itself.
PS: For those who still don't undestand how the current situation can be considered unfair, an attempt at an analogy: There is an art gallery, showing and selling pictures of two artists. One of them is considerably more popular than the other, thus clearly the gallery benefits more from this artist. Yet the gallery pays both of them the same. That is maybe equal, but it is very unfair. In addition to that, it is also demotivating - the more popular artist has no reason keep doing well or may try to go elsewhere, and the less popular artist does not have a very big motivation to try harder.
The good artist would concentrate on his work, and (going back to openSUSE) try to fix the actual problems that alienated people from KDE (as you claim it happened), like, for example, the mountain of network problems users met in the last two releases (I actually had to help quite some of them to use nm-applet for from GNOME on local forums). And again, the good artist would not spend time by re-opening a discussion done already too many times, and concluded with a neutral decision. If KDE really has to excel, it will do anyway, default or not: the good artist knows also this, and that's part of the reasons why he is good. He does not complain for a checkbox, he just works hard to paint better and improve things. Anyway, good luck. In my book the GNOME guys are the real winners, without spending many words on this thread and on this topic. After all in a few years they had the merit of bringing GNOME from an actual second class citizen, to one of the most polished GNOME around. Now someone is asking to make KDE as default, and claims this will actually, not only not damage, but help the GNOME team, giving them more motivation. It is kind of ridiculous. Really. Bye, A. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org