Godwin's Law Invoked in Linus/Gnome Spat 828
lisah writes "The flame wars between Linus Torvalds and the GNOME community continue to burn. Responding to Torvalds' recent claim that GNOME 'seems to be developed by interface Nazis' and that its developers believe their 'users are idiots,' a member of the Linux Foundation's Desktop Architects mailing list suggested that Torvalds use GNOME for a month before making such pronouncements. Torvalds, never one to back down from a challenge, simply turned around and submitted patches to GNOME and then told the list, '...let's see what happens to my patches. I guarantee you that they actually improve the code.' After lobbing that over the fence, Torvalds concluded his comments by saying, 'Now the question is, will people take the patches, or will they keep their heads up their arses and claim that configurability is bad, even when it makes things more logical, and code more readable.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.
Please take care of Linus (Score:5, Insightful)
But Linus does really seem to have a bit of an attitude problem at times. Which is many times good if you are a boss for employees, but the problem just is that is not what Linus is, he is the boss of volenteers, they can quit if they don't like their boss.
I can't help but get a little worried, had it been anyone else but Linus I wouldn't mind, let people have their strange ways as long as they do not bother me or anyone else to much.
I am just worried for Linus, I sure hope he does take care of himself and stay mentally fit, that flamewars like the one he appearently had with the Gnome people here does not bring him out of balance somehow.
If Linus somehow gets sick and overloaded then it will lead to a whole lot of mess with the development of the Linux Kernel which really would not be nice.
So please Gnome people start behaving, be humble, accept the patches and do not upset Linus, we really need him, even if he isn't always the nicest person around
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:2, Insightful)
So please Gnome people start behaving, be humble, accept the patches and do not upset Linus, we really need him, even if he isn't always the nicest person around
The way you put this, sounds like Torvals has some kind of severe autism.
Don't cut off your nose to spite your face (Score:2, Insightful)
Cleaner and more capable?? (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, if someone submitted patches to the linux kernel to grab the local weather report and print it out on boot, that would be adding capability that Linus would never accept in a million years because it is outside of the scope of the kernel. If Linus's patches are similarly outside the scope of the official design goals of Gnome, then any expectation that they would be accepted is just a red herring.
No. (Score:1, Insightful)
As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, yeah, I know, it's F/LOSS, I should just submit patches. But I'd rather rant and let other people submit them for me
He's completely wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of the open source movement is to allow alternative approaches to flourish and be chosen (or not) on their merits. It's what OSS does to raise quality. The biggest problem KDE and Gnome always had was that they continually trod on each others' toes. So, let them go their separate ways - let KDE be configurable and Gnome be "designed for idiots". See who wins. Either which way the variety is good for OSS itself.
Dave
Not about look (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that linus had to take time to submit patches means the gnome developers are doing something incredibly stupid, this isn't a turf war, it means linus is concerned that the kernel he spends shitloads of time on is being trivialized by idiot programmers refusing to accept what the rest of the world wants in the systems they use.
KDE does the same shit, its annoying. I use linux daily but i have to say this is classic linux bullshit, KDE has too much, gnome has too little and no one wants to talk to each other or solve shit because everyone is in their own little camp.
Prefixes are gay as well, kstfu, ggbye
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:3, Insightful)
What I don't understand is (Score:2, Insightful)
I do not want to sound like jealousy or so but we humans are all equal in rights. But we are not equally famous. So because someone is famous, what he says should have more value?
I believe the Linux kernel is a good piece of software, but that's millions of line of code, Linus wrote only a small part of them. If another coder who wrote a good piece of stable drivers in the Linux kernel said the same thing Linus said, the question is, would this have had any headlines anywhere?
The answer is certainly no.
So that's why I think we should put an end to this Linus stuff. Linus does this, Linus says that... Who cares? Okay he did good things by the past, he does good things today but hey, there are many good developers out there, probably even better ones, and even Linux would survive pretty well without Linus.
gconf = regedit (Score:5, Insightful)
There are tons of things that can be configured/fixed in Windows just like Gnome.
With some configuration tool that's only suitable for an elite bunch to use.
So, I don't see Gnome as an improvement over Windows in terms of usability.
Re:Users *are* usually idiots. (Score:5, Insightful)
Incidentally, spatial file management is one of the worst things ever to come out of the "if it agrees with common sense it can't possibly be right" school of interface design.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh please, if Torvalds is autistic, then I'm a borderline pyschopath. People sometimes lose it when typing. I do often. They don't see the other side of the conversation as an actual person. It happens. For example, right now, I want to hit you with a stick. If this were real life, I'd not want to, and I'd have you out for coffee.
Re:He's completely wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, long after the licensing issues with Qt have gone, and while Gnome continues to be the least functional GUI available for any modern desktop OS (a badge the Gnome community appears to wear with pride), no one has switched.
I'm as frustrated as Torvalds is with it, because it's not enough to just use KDE when given the chance. Look at the utter disregard the Ubuntu project has for Kubuntu; the system configuration dialogs last time I used it (Breezy Badger) were utterly broken and unusable -- and I've heard from some Edgy Eft users that it still sucks. There's a post right above here yapping about how awful slow Kubuntu is compared with Debian.
KDE's the only desktop that does things right. Konqueror is gorgeous, and easily rivals my Mac for usability and power.
Configurable click behaviour of title bars?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Users *are* usually idiots. (Score:3, Insightful)
So the result is likely to be that they will use the default, and assume that Gnome is "Linux".
The term "power user" implies a certain level of familiarity, but little actual knowledge - a lot of rote learning ("click here to do this"), perhaps the ability to use VBA, and that is about it.
Re:huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
The ADL have become (maybe they always were, I haven't paid that much attention) one of the most pro-censorship advocacy groups out there and in an unbashedly biased fashion too - take their stance on Borat - at first they wanted him off the air for encouraging anti-semitism, [adl.org] but someone must have explained the joke to them because a year or two later they issued a second press release saying it's too bad that Borat uses Kazakhs as the butt of his jokes, but its OK after all since they aren't jews, so we don't want Cohen censored after all. [adl.org]
How can they expect anyone to take them seriously when they are happy to endorse the exact same kind of defamation they claim to oppose as long as it is aimed at some other ethnic group besides their own?
You and the moderators are out of your minds (Score:5, Insightful)
"there will be hell to pay for ignoring it"
I can't believe Linus, who has probably dropped more patches than anyone else alive, would think that sending in unwanted patches along with a *fuck you too* for good measure would think that somehow the GNOME people would suddenly change their minds.
Furthermore, projects should avoid contributors that are unable to get along even if they would make a valuable contribution. Having the additional useful developer doesn't balance out loosing the contribution of others who are offended and the loss of community around your project. I'm not making this up, just ask any HR department whether they would hire an all around offensive individual regardless of how good he is.
Honestly, I have a lot of respect for Linus, and respect someone who cares so much about the right solution. However in this case he has gone way over the line from being passionate about technology and perhaps a little quirky, into being embarrassingly out of touch with the norms of human interaction in a public forum.
Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
I use Fluxbox why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because I don't want the bloat involved with Gnome and KDE backgroud utilities running
Because I don't want my machine to act or behave like M$ Windows or OS X
Because I want pure freakin' speed!!!
Because eye-candy isn't that damned important. I get by fine with 3Ddesktop and translucent aterms.
If I really want eye-candy I'll run Enlightenment
As I've been telling people thinking about Vista, do you want a fast computer so your OS can look pretty or so you can get more done? Application performance comes first and foremost so I want the lightest, fastest desktop available short of running Rat or screen.
Re:No. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a common theme amongst UI developers. Provide lots of customization, but ship with sane defaults. There is no reason that the Gnome developers couldn't provide this, except for the lack of time. Linus has started the process of solving that problem with his patches.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is (as Linus has demonstrated), is that if you know what you're doing you can add this stuff, or at least drop to the command line or install Konq or Midnight Commander. Virtually every Linux dist has a vast library of tools to use. I do think that GNOME would benefit from some kind of power tools (think TweakUI on windows) or even an advanced mode which exposes more, but making the desktop simple, consistent and easy to use for mere mortals by default is the only way to go.
Anyway GNOME isn't as simple as OS X (for example), yet dare criticize OS X on slashdot and you invoke the wrath of Apple zealots everywhere.
Linus/Gnome (Score:1, Insightful)
And I find no reason to say anything different here. Linus arrived fashionably late to the Gnome vs. KDE flamewar. 5 years late. And 3 years too late to make a real difference.
I've looked at the titles of the patches and I'm sure that Gnome will reject some of them on style guidelines -- regardless of what Linus thinks. But I think it helps to understand the two mindsets.
Linus thinks like this:
So in that respect I would say that we would need to take his comments with a grain of salt as well.
At worst he can always fork it and call it Linus/Gnome.
Re:You and the moderators are out of your minds (Score:4, Insightful)
Now I use GNOME, which to me is much prettier than KDE, has a nice shell where I spend most of the time, and lets me run Emacs. So I do appreciate the work the GNOME guys do and all. And never even noticed that right-clicking on the border of windows brings up a useless menu, and that there's no way to change this behavior. So Linus noticed, and it seems he talked to some maintainer and the guys in that list and eventually got fed up. Why, I don't exactly know. In fact, it does surprise me a bit, since I know Linus is a no-nonsense kind of guy, and kinda smart too, and the people who coded this beautiful user interface just can't be morons.
So I think that this brouhaha was caused by, sorry, people like you, getting all worked up in the name of "the norms of human interaction in a public forum" or (more likely in that case) the "norms for talking sweetly to the commitee so a change they didn't thought of is even considered". I'm sorry, but you sound exasperating. *Fuck* the norms of human interaction yadda-yadda, the change is an improvement, it does not affect usability at all (as I said, I didn't even noticed before), and if someone told Linus that they were not going to do it because GNOME is better off without it, then that someone was being a bureaucratic prick and deserved a sound fuck-you.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:5, Insightful)
If you get the occasion, read The curious incident of the dog in the night time [amazon.com] by Mark Haddon. Its a very small and entertaining paperback, an avid reader could finish it off in one evening's sitting.
I also suffer from :
* Severe Anxiety In Social Situations
* Extreme difficulty making decisions when new options are in front of me
* Panic attacks when touched unexpectedly
* Panic attacks when people shout or demonstrate hostile / violent behavior
I'm not saying they / we ARE autistic, I'm only pointing out that reclusive geeks demonstrate very, very similar symptoms. From the research I've done, it seems that somewhere around Gen-X kids who are really smart were given an overdose of stimuli which grew their creativity and intellect but shot them in the foot emotionally. Right about the time of the Texas Instruments home computer, from what I can tell, and onward.
I had to wade through an enormous amount of kiddie-shrink finger pointing papers, and I'm still doing that
There's also a school of thought that empathy is the next evolutionary "tool" we're devloping, and the feedback we get from the heightened sense literally drives us crazy to the point where we seem autistic.
People who stay home and work, electing not to interact much with the outside world around them do so for very good reasons, and we really need to be tolerant of eachother's quirks. This doesn't mean that you put on a T shirt that says "Hey world, I have a hard time coping with you so plese be nice to me all the time", however.
If you (yourself) won't make an effort to get past yourself, you can't expect more from those around you.
The smarter we get, the less we're able to handle it. I don't think the world is going to slow down so we feel more comfortable being in it
Let us not forget, Linus is most directly responsible for this 'cool little safe haven' we found where not only can we interact at a level that also lets us feel safe, we can also have careers. When he talks, listen. If you don't like what he says, cope.
Mod parent offtopic/troll? (Score:3, Insightful)
In what world are these mutually exclusive?
Windows is free?
Come on, with a post that short, you can afford to read it aloud to yourself and see if it makes sense.
Funny, that seems like what Linus is doing here. He wants to be able to change his right-click without recompiling! In what way is that wrong?
Oh, by the way, Windows allows programs change options in your right-click menu without rebooting, much less recompiling.
Which is why good Linux UIs make this configurable through a nice GUI. Point and click your way to what you want -- just like on Windows.
You know, your post reads like you think this has something to do with Linux not detecting hardware (except it does; it's not 1999 anymore), but that's not the issue at all. It's about UI preferences, and for fuck's sake, how is my computer supposed to know what kind of UI I want?
Oh, right, there's Clippy, which tries to guess what I'm doing ("It looks like you're writing a letter..."), and Vista's UAC, which asks me before it does anything ("Are you sure you want to use the Internet? That could be dangerous!")... I suppose that's my computer "discovering" what I want out of the box. But you know what, every single person I've talked to -- not just on Slashdot; Microsoft zealots included -- hates Clippy and UAC with a passion, because the defaults are fine for most people, and for the people who care, they'd rather hunt for the settings they care about than be bombarded about absolutely everything.
Here's the link (Score:5, Insightful)
http://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/deskt
Basically, Linus wants to have fine grained control over what the mouse buttons do.
Sounds like a simple request, but he doesn't reveal it until *after* he submits a patch and in that same email goes on to rant about how no-one listens to him and how GNOME developers make excuses instead of just doing whatever he wants. In a later email he comments that he sent the patches to a developer's only email address (that he admits may or may not have been able to see his patches) because he doesn't like bugzilla and says that the patches must be accepted or GNOME developers are a bunch of hypocrites even though an API freeze is in effect for about a month ( http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointSeventeen [gnome.org] ).
Personally, I find it a bit interesting that Linus has repeatedly flamed (or sidelined) people on the Linux kernel mailing list for acting like he is now, not following the kernel submission procedure, assuming that freezes don't count, and assuming that if the core architects of the Linux kernel think that a feature (done in a certain way) is a bad idea then they must be a bunch of hypocrites.
I personally don't know if the patches are any good or in keeping with GNOME's design or need changes or
It's not unreasonable to expect this. GNOME core developers don't go on the Linux kernel thread and whine and submit attitude patches to Linus, 'tho if they did, they would (and should) be flamed. Linus has said repeatedly on the kernel mailing lists that submitters must either follow the kernel rules, or fork (e.g. if you don't like the license), or pass on your patches to someone who is willing to do things that kernel developer's way (none of Reiser's patches would have gone if it weren't for this later option).
Are there problems with the GNOME way of doing things? Sure. Linus brought up a good point about the ease of submitting patches. But all projects have issues. There was a time, not too long ago, when the submission process for the Linux kernel was "send Linus your patches and if he doesn't respond then keep resending them because the patches might have gotten lost". But the issues won't get better if you complain to the wrong people.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Re:Users *are* usually idiots. (Score:2, Insightful)
Alternative approaches (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Attitude (Score:2, Insightful)
These GNOMEheads seem to not be so enlightened.
Re:Configurable click behaviour of title bars?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Both of these are actually obscenely easy to deal with. If I let other people use my machine, I give them their own account and put them on GNOME. (I run straight Beryl with elements of Fluxbox.) And if you're reading an introductory book, you'll be dealing with defaults anyway.
Sane defaults, but configurability, is the way to go. And by the way, this is true of more than just Linux. I've tried to use someone else's Mac, and couldn't find the program I wanted easily because his desktop was absolutely fucking PILED with documents, something like 10 deep on top of the "hard drive" icon, making it kind of difficult to get to "Applications". Someone else's Windows, and you find they've got the status bar auto-hiding at the top of the screen. And for that matter, I use the dvorak layout, so...
I mean, I understand the point of that. That is why, for instance, game consoles are designed the way they are -- you can toss a controller to anyone and have them join the party.
But configurability can be done in such a way that it doesn't hurt usability. And, in fact, it has to be done that way, because if you nix configurability, you kill usability.
Re:Attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
So - let's see what happened here.
a) Linus bitches about something he doesn't like
b) Somebody says "Use it for a month and THEN see if you like it (which totally ignores the fact that what he's bitching about shows that he HAS, in fact, used it). Others tell him that if he's not using it, or doing something about it, he has no right to complain.
c) Linus turns around and does what he's told to - he submits patches to fix what he thinks is broken
I don't see anything wrong here. I don't see evidence of an ego. What *I* see is somebody with very strong opinions, and grounded with a basis in fact (even if you don't agree with his conclusions - which I don't), doing something about it instead of just whining.
I wish MORE people had this particular "ego problem" of Linus' - Open Source would be much further along.
Re:Interface Nazis. (Score:5, Insightful)
And GNOME was developed on the UI toolkit originally developed for which famous piece of software?
Gnome developers aren't idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
Gnome is doing a good job at what they're doing. If people like Linus and you want to help, learn something about UI design first. Then, you can either contribute suggestions for specific improvements justified based on accepted UI design criteria, or you can participate in user testing. Your and Linus's opinions, on the other hand, are pretty much worthless.
Re:huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Attitude (Score:2, Insightful)
Nor do I. I haven't been able to find out what Linus' patches are supposed to fix, but he should at least be taken seriously. More than I, in any case. I have to admit I'm one of those long-time Gnome users who bitch and moan when the developers come up with some new asshattery, but don't do anything about it...
Gnome is good but he really has a point (Score:3, Insightful)
I see it as a not paticularly good idea implemented badly - as an exercise for the reader consider how you would go about exporting the gpanel menu setting from one user to another on the same machine. Consider it in detail and look at source code instead of just stating "it's XML - how hard can it be?" - it will suprise and offend you - and you'll see why some very capable gnome developers have not yet finished the Sabayon application that is designed to do such things.
There's a lot that is good about gnome but don't assume that pointing out flaws is due to attitude problems.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:5, Insightful)
If you'll forgive my saying this, you sound like one of those people who responds to every criticism of Bush by bringing up something Clinton did. This isn't a binary thing. This isn't a "everyone who hates Gnome must love KDE" thing. It is perfectly possible and legitimate to criticise Gnome's decisions completely without reference to KDE. I for one think both environments are equally unpleasant to use; I use Gnome at the moment purely because I haven't got round to looking for something better.You see? You are totally missing the point. This is not about whether Gnome is better than KDE or vice versa! This is about whether someone for whom Gnome is 95% perfect is able to fix that remaining 5%, or whether they're going to be permanently frustrated by little niggles that they can't straighten out. This is about whether the decisions Gnome's powers-that-be make are allowing Gnome to fit the TASTE and PREFERENCE of people who want to choose Gnome, because Gnome is closer to what they want than any of the other choices.
I don't get it. Why do so many people like you seem to think that the existence of other desktop environments means it should somehow be off-limits to discuss the benefits and disadvantages of any individual environment? Why do you think that any attempt to improve a minor aspect of one environment must really be a conspiracy to replace it with a different environment? Why are so many people dedicated to stifling debate? We're talking about desktop environments here, not religion, for God's sake.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:2, Insightful)
Linus deserves a lot of credit, but let's credit him for what he did.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:different desktops for different people (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, people who find Gnome 95% perfect are suffering, because it won't let them fix the last 5% and get their dream environment. And you are not doing these people any favours by telling them they should use some other environment instead, because if Gnome is 95% perfect then KDE, Xfce, Blackbox, etc. will all be worse for them.
This is getting beyond weird guys (Score:3, Insightful)
The mutant thing above really has me thinking it's time for people to reach for a dictionary, a few good novels and a few years worth of newspapers - I see it as a really bad comparison I cannot grasp the point of. Real people can do a lot of things and cover a wide range of abilities without getting pidgeonholed in with people in extreme states. Start paying attention instead of cataloging.
A false dichotomy (Score:3, Insightful)
First, there is no monolithic "people" who single mindedly want something. If there were, everyone would be satisfied with the pathetic lot that the majority have voted into power in Washington.
More importantly, you are making a false dichotomy. Configurability is not the enemy of ease of use. The two properties are completely unrelated. Want to please both the dabblers and the deep tinkerers? Just give each software module intelligent defaults (pretty much like Gnome does now with some exceptions where it could be greatly improved), and add comprehensive configuration dialogs to change things. Now prominently add a single button, "restore all defaults". Presto. Now idiots (forgive me) can always instantly set everything to the One True Way which is easy to learn and easy to explain, while intelligent people can still set things up in an intelligent
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, to attempt to draw a parallel between those things and intelligence is both absurd and unsupported.
There are many, a majority, in fact, of extraordinarily intelligent people who are not only able to function
socially, but are able to apply that intellect and bring a greater awareness to bear in decision-making, and in
navigating social and political situations, sans conditions like those from which you suffer.
I also respectfully submit that your "research" is necessarily biased, as you clearly have an emotional desire
to have your theories proven true (as you apparently and understandably suffer from feelings of inferiority from your conditions).
Studies have consistently shown that higher intelligence leads to healthier (physically and mentally) and happier
people. This "semi-autistic genius geek" thing is a BS myth. Don't say most, say "me." Because that is what you mean, and it ends there.
Furthermore... this cult of personality nonsense (re: listening to Linus because he's Linus) is the height of idiocy.
When he talks, listen. If you don't like what he says, cope.
The first part is reasonable, the second ridiculous. If you don't like what he says, provide a counterpoint. It will be no more or less valid regardless of any factor save its internal logical consistency.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:5, Insightful)
I stand corrected (and your right) and I know better because I was there. The sentence should have said "Linus and Stallman", but Linus is the topic.
If any part of the 'big bang' had not happened just as it did, I'm quite sure the universe would still exist but I can't accurately say just how things would be within it.
Free software as we know it has more than one parent, you are 100% correct. Stallman laid the roads, no doubt about it
"Yes, hello, MCI? Yes about my bill, this call to California
I'm not at all negating or diminishing the work of everyone else involved, but lines of code aren't the only measure of how much someone contributed.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:2, Insightful)
In other words to use Gnome you either have to be the of complete fucking idiot that the Gnome developers code against or someone who can write interface code; with little in between.
. .
Sometimes they are complete fucking idiots who can throw all the hissy fits they want without it making any nevermind to me. Hissy fits do not modify my thoughts, they just make the hissy fitter look like a complete fucking idiot. I tend to avoid OSX for many of the same reasons that I refuse to use Gnome. When I do use it it is to make something difficult easier.
Gnome likes to make stupidly simple things stupidly difficult. If I have to drop to command line to get things done, what the hell is the point of Gnome in the first place? Once in command line I might just as well stay there or load up a GUI that actually does shit.
KFG
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:5, Insightful)
I work partly embedded in an academic CS environment, there are plenty of people there who aren't the most socially adept, but to suggest that these people all have Asperger's is nonsense.
There's a huge problem with people self-diagnosing autistic spectrum disorders, they read a paragraph or two on Asperger's and then they have the 'omg that's me!' moment. I can happily sit around all day picking bits out of DSM criteria that fit my personality.
Let me tell you something, these geeks don't have Asperger's. I have a girlfriend who is diagnosed with Asperger's and believe you me she is nothing like the people I know in the CS department.
Just because you're a bit shy, antisocial, have a thing for code and maths and aren't the most outgoing person in the world doesn't make you fucking Asperger's.
You don't want to be autistic, you don't even want to pretend to be autistic. Watching someone with Asperger's struggle with living day to day is not fun. You geeks don't struggle to live from day to day. Panic attacks are not the sole preserve of people with Asperger's, and when you see an AS suffer 'overloaded' with stimuli you don't want to be around because there's nothing you can do to calm them down and they're using one of their coping mechanisms to keep themselves from literally losing the plot.
Living with Asperger's is not something you should aspire to. You can be logical, antisocial, good with computers and suffer panic attacks and still not be Asperger's or anywhere on the autistic spectrum.
Repeat after me - Wikiepdia is not a fucking doctor, it cannot diagnose you. If you think you all have Asperger's go get a referral to someone who can tell you. Watch as they boot you out of the surgery for wasting their time.
regards,
long suffering partner of a wonderful Asperger's gf.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:3, Insightful)
By downloading the source code for an entire desktop environment, learning how it works, patching it, building it, and testing it yourself ?????
Wow....that's configurability for you.
Re:Gnome developers aren't idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
If they apply "widely used principles of UI design", why, for example, is the file save dialog so different (and much worse) than in Windows, OS X or KDE ?
Testing the interface on "real people" is fine, but are they exclusively doing this on people who have next-to-no computer experience ? Testing what these people find useable for their first few days of computing experience with a new environment is fine, but everyone learns things in time, learns their own preferred way of doing things, and is able to absorb more and more functionality.
I really don't understand why people should be limited in their configuration options for their own sakes. (If developers don't want to be bothered coding all those options, that's another matter).
What on earth is the problem with, for example, having TWO control panels - one to control just the basic options, and a second one (or an "advanced" section in a single control panel) to allow more advanced users the options they would like ? Particularly if the "advanced" control panel has a prominent button on it marked "Reset all Advanced Settings to Default Values" to rescue anyone who happens to get lost trying out things they don't fully understand, or have forgotten how to restore.
"Gnome is doing a good job at what they're doing. If people like Linus and you want to help, learn something about UI design first..... Your and Linus's opinions, on the other hand, are pretty much worthless."
If people like you want to help, learn something about not being a condescending prick first.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:4, Insightful)
With that attitude the good stuff on the web would still only be reachable via Gopher.
If it's configurable, and eeverything possible should be that doesn't break the system, then it should be obviously configurable. What ever happened to the idea of treating Unix people like adults?
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:1, Insightful)
Let's start with the history (all as I see it, of course):
1. A flamewar erupts, Linus on one side, Gnome developers on the other.
2. Gnomers basically say "Look, it is good. The only reason you say it isn't is because you haven't really used it. If you used it, you would like it."
3. Linus fires back a series of patches that prove that not only has he used it, he has delved into the code, understood it and figured out how to fix what he doesn't like, clean up the structure of their code and improve Gnome in general.
So what is the poster's take on this? But Linus does really seem to have a bit of an attitude problem at times. When faced with a flamewar and thrown a gauntlet that basically says "Try it, you'll like it!" Linus provided very basic proof that he did try it, he didn't like it and even provided constructive criticism why and specific examples of how to change the code to make it better. Shit! We should all have such attitude problems!
And what really concerns the poster? I am just worried for Linus, I sure hope he does take care of himself and stay mentally fit, that flamewars like the one he appearently had with the Gnome people here does not bring him out of balance somehow. If Linus somehow gets sick and overloaded then it will lead to a whole lot of mess with the development of the Linux Kernel which really would not be nice. Well, not to worry, poster; it looks as though the Linux Kernel is in fine hands, sir.
I have followed the history of several patches that altered basic functionality in the kernel, driven by Linus, and I find this to be Linus' standard operating mode. He discusses, suggests, and even proposes code to try and actually let people see what he is driving at, comment, change and develop what finally ends up in the kernel. The only time I see the kind of flamewar mentioned in this article develop is when he is dealing with a stubborn, obstinate, (in my view) just-plain-wrong mindset that seems to oppose change simply because it is change!
And what worries me is the conclusion from all this that Linus has an attitude problem and not the Gnome developers!
Re:Attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gnome developers aren't idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
That's right, kids: unless you become an expert on how other people might use a computer, you are unqualified to have an opinion on how you would like to use it. And never forget that even if you hate a design decision, all of your friends hate it, and everyone on the Internet seems to hate it, your collective opinions are worthless compared to that of a person who once read somewhere that it was a really good idea.
Re:Interface Nazis. (Score:3, Insightful)
Problem is the lack of file managers (Score:3, Insightful)
ROX is not the answer. XFCE is not the answer.
I wonder: could something like this benefit from Java? That would be a good idea, wouldn't it? You could have something light like Fluxbox, that have a power file manager, since you already hava Java installed. That would also be multiplatform.
Re:Attitude (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Gnome developers aren't idiots (Score:3, Insightful)
Say, if Apple gets a bad rap on some feature, repeatedly, on the specialized press, I'd say they'd be pretty much concerned about the comments, and might actually listen. Same with Microsoft.
GNOME, OTOH, sees people saying the same old thing, over and over again, on forums, web pages, etc., but just doesn't care. Why? Possible reasons:
1) They work in IT - hence, they are autistic, just like Linus Torvalds.
2) They work focusing on stupid corporation users that are migrating from Windows to Linux, and they don't give a shit about what you and I say on Slashdot;
3) They just don't give a shit, because they conduct no usability studies (actually, IIRC, Novell might have conducted some, right? Please say I'm right.);
4) They don't give a shit. Period. Whether you send them patches or not, because, so far, they have a bad track record in even looking at the patches people send them, let alone merging them.
5) They are gnomes. Hence, they have differing usability concerns from the rest of the population.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:different desktops for different people (Score:3, Insightful)
Too bad that +5 is the highest moderation you can get. I think this one sentence sums up the situation better than all of the other posts I have read. I, too, am a Gnome user and do not like the direction it is going. The two most common scenarios I see are:
So where does that leave us, the dispossessed Gnome users? I wish I knew.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:3, Insightful)
"...It's not thinking users are stupid when you don't provide the overwhelming configurability that messy interfaces like KDE provide."
I think the GNOME developers are idiots for reinvernting one of the worst features of Windows, the registry.
gconf-editor is WAY too close to using regedit for mys stomach, is an abomination, and the whole concept should be hurled into the sun.
This really isn't intended as a troll, but since the first GNOME betas I regularly gave it a shot on new RH, then Fedora releases..., and SOMETHING would crater within 5 minutes, usually taking down X11.
(This went on for YEARS)
GNOME has surely gotten ~stable by now, but now when I try it, something about the UI (that is a royal *itch to change) usually pisses me off, and I'm back to XFCE or KDE in less than an hour.
I still TRY it, but it seems to be going backwards usability wise.
Perhaps I'm not their target demographic. (Full time Linux user since 1994, starting with Slackware.)
what a hypocrite (Score:3, Insightful)
This is from the guy who steadfastly refuses to let the Linux kernel even compile with C++ compilers, let alone move it over to C++. Apparently, power, configurability, and choice are values he cherishes only for other people's projects.
Linus' patch for Gnome is bad. I'm sorry he doesn't understand why complete configurability for the mouse is undesirable, but that's his problem. Furthermore, he actually has a trivial option for getting what he wants: he can use one of half a dozen other window managers, many of them fully configurable.
Re:Interface Nazis. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ban who you want from YOUR board. I think the Slashdot folks will just ignore those we disagree with. I fully embrace anyone's ability to express their opinion. I just as fully embrace everyone's right to ignore others' opinions.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:3, Insightful)
and still not be Asperger's or anywhere on the autistic spectrum.
You make a good point, but you seem to be misunderstanding the concept of a spectrum. There is no "autistic spectrum", autism is simply at one end of "a" spectrum of human behaviour:
|---normal-range-of-human-behaviour-------introve
Obviously a grossly inaccurate simplification, but I'm just trying to show that not everyone that notices how often we INTP computer geeks exhibit asperger's like symptoms is trying to claim those actually have asperger's syndrome, they are just saying they are near that end of the spectrum.
Re:Please take care of Linus (Score:4, Insightful)
He did and look what happened: Gnome.