Michael Meeks wrote:
On Wed, 2009-08-26 at 12:23 +0200, Stephan Kulow wrote:
But these contain so many variables too (did people still have gnome 2.24 when the patch came out? Did people actually use the software they are downloading patches for?...)
Yes - I agree it is a quagmire of uncertainty :-) In a world of (wonderful) 'zypper dup' - if we measure ISO downloads do we loose a chunk of our most clueful user-base ? there are too many imponderables.
[pruned]
So - to unreasonably extrapolate from this small sample, in this random timeframe I would turn that into:
rough percentage of download sites: 50.2% - chose KDE4 32.9% - chose both 16.9% - chose Gnome
from which - it seems, extrapolating, that we are needlessly annoying 1/3rd of DVD users by having a straight choice in that dialog rather than check boxes (which can be made an orthogonal issue to having a default - we can have both).
GNOME is handicapped by a major marketing problem. First, the name GNOME, which to more people than less, gives the impression that it one of those concrete, insignificant looking, dwarves scattered around some ding-a-ling's garden. (The husband of a late friend of ours not only had gnomes in their front garden but also a crypt with a statue of the madonna - surrounded by those gnomes! Sheesh!) Having the knowledge that GNOME stands for 'GNU Network Object Model Environment' means sweet FA to everybody - except to the GNOME developers and other assorted and dedicated users. And having a big footprint, with 5 toes, as its "trademark" doesn't help in any way. Put both together and the picture created in a person's mind is that of a mythical and outdated 'creature' pretending to provide the very latest desktop environment for the modern user. MS and others did not adopt GNOME as the DE, did they? On the other hand, KDE has a simple, elegant, trademark symbol, and has the simple and elegant name of 'KDE' which in Russian, for example, simply means, "Where?" or in English simply, 'KDE'. But with no connotations of dwarves, gnomes, or Bigfoot walking in mud, or snow, and not even wearing shoes. BC -- Great Man reaches complete understanding of the main issues; Petty Man reaches complete understanding of the minute details." Confucius -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org