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GNOME GUI

Miguel de Icaza On GNOME 2.0 58

Posted by timothy from the does-miguel-have-sisters dept.
Dan93 writes: "Here is an article on what is planned for GNOME 2.0. Pretty interesting stuff such as GNOME VFS, and the cleanup work that is supposed to fix every known architectural problem in GNOME." Also, I heard at LWCE as well from the Eazel folks that by this point in the evolution (ha ha) of GNOME, the nearly-ready-for-prime-time Eazel desktop will be included as well.
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Miguel de Icaza On GNOME 2.0 More

Miguel de Icaza On GNOME 2.0

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  • Re:KDE idiots (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    KDE is offerring a lot, and GNOME is letting users "preview" a lot. There is substantial difference.

    The KDE project has a habit of choosing quick to implement, but technically flawed solutions - and not laying the groundwork properly. A perfect example is QT.

    So if you want to say Gnome is previewing... fine, but don't claim that KDE stuff is ready to be used because it simple isn't. I've lost count of the number of KDE advocates claiming the Koffice is ready for primetime - these people live in fantasy land.

    I detest the idea of my file manager being a memory hog due to its own inadaquencies

    You base this on what? Nautlius is not out yet... I'll judge it when it is.

    KDE is already a whole level above GNOME

    Well Gnome started in response to KDE's corrupt decision to use a proprietry toolkit... so it started later. Quite apart from that, the GNOME project does considerably less bragging about upcoming improvements... Pango, the Gnome Canvas, are all superb pieces of foundation software but they aren't quite as sexy and appealing to cheerleadering airheads as aRts.

    BTW: most of the stuff KDE announces these days is preview... whether it is Koffice, or Magellan or anything by TheKompany, or most stuff by TrollTech (other than QT itself).

    they sound like they maintain a healthy outlook

    I prefer to judge them on their actions, not on carefully prepared press releases. Ever since the announcement of the Gnome foundation, there has been a shocking increase in the volume and amount of KDE fudding. The overreaction to the Ximian advert is just the latest example.

  • Re:Internal conflicts (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This [gnome.org] might be of some interest for you.

  • Re:KDE idiots (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nautilus is one of the most componentized GNOME applications. If you don't browse the web then the mozilla component does not get loaded by Nautilus, avoiding all the mozila bloat.

  • Re:VFS (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you read the whitepapers at developer.gnome.org youll find out that the gnome is both a set of desktop oriented modules and a whole other set that gives non-ui services. They do not extend the operating nor do they substitute services that are not on the os. They are an abstraction layer used in orther to comply with one of the most important goals of the gnome project. Unified consistent desktop on ALL UNIXES, including configuration tools, printing and file mangement. Try and do that without an extra layer... no de lieu standard has acomplished this, it must become a de facto standard: its a task for an extra layer.

  • Re:Gnome zealots refuse to admit it... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Come on.... OO is an aproach, not a language.

  • I think a simple example will best explain and summarize what Miguel was trying to convey in the article. When he said "aiming low", he is not advocating throwing away the "blue sky goal", but instead he's suggesting to approach it gradually, rather than in one BIG jump.

    Here is the example. Say we think we need 6 months to do all the architectural changes and stuff to get to Gnome 2.0. Based on the "delays" examples he's given, we'll probably end up taking 12 months to actually finish it. Meanwhile, in those 12 months, the stable Gnome 1.2 (or 1.4) will languish and just have bug fixes, with no preview of what's to come. Rather, if we "aim low" at first, then in 6 months we are sure to have *some* extra features/improvements. Gnome 2.0 might (and probably will) take 12 months, but at least we have *something* in 6 months to work with and use.

    Remember that Gnome is not an Application, not even just a Desktop Environment. IMHO the most important aspect of Gnome is that it is a Development Environment across Unices. If things break all of a sudden, a whole strew of applications will break with it. If Gnome 2.0 takes 12 months to be declared stable, a whole strew of applications will be unstable for 12 months, or use the old Gnome instead. However, if we have something not as good in 6 months, and then the blue sky goal after another 6 months, the applications can do the same.

    This approach follows quite nicely with the "release early, release often" mentality. Instead of doing a massive upgrade, Miguel is proposing taking smaller steps and releasing something stable each time. The key here is to aim at something reasonable each time.


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  • there is an alternative way of looking at these problems - kind of a best of both worlds approach. it's not a simple continuum.

    they could order the things that they are going to change, do the most important first (eg gtk 2.0 compatibility), progressing in small steps from one stable state to another stable state. (kind of like refactoring).

    then of course you can branch your source control to attack 2 goals at the same time.
  • Listen to yourself: it takes 5 seconds and uses only 20meg...

    5 seconds for opening a window is at least 25 times too slow. And for the memory, don't even get me started.

    I am not saying that other programs don't equally suck, but we should be straight on one thing: if the window doesn't open within 0.2 seconds it is too slow (independent of how much work it has to do).
  • and are you really patient enough to wait 5 seconds for a window to open? I'm sorry but unless its one HELL of a big app, I really don't see why it should take too much longer than a second to do most things. I have an athlon 700/384MB and I stopped using mozilla because the interface took too long to come up. Galeon is just as good and loads faster.
    Call me impatient, but user experience is all about speed, and gnome isn't going to gain more users by having them wait 5 or 7 seconds to open every new window.
  • Bullshit.

    I'm running it on a Celeron 466 with 196meg, and after the initial startup time of about 7 seconds (which you only need to do once...) it takes 5 seconds to open a window with my home dir that has 100 items and a nice image as a background. The AA text stuff and translucent selection indicator don't slow down very much either.

    So, yes....bullshit it's too slooooooooooooooooow. It's running slightly slower than GMC, and does a hell of a lot more.

    And as for RAM sucking...it's only using about 20meg, which I think is pretty acceptable.
  • Gnome libs is up to 1.2.11
    Gnome core is at 1.2.4
    Dunno about the rest, that's pretty much all I have.
  • Well, there's loading the icons from disk, including the image thumbnails, there's rendering them in antialiased and other shit I can't be bothered about...like I said, I'm content with it, and I'd expect it to be getting better, but it's not a slooooooooooooooow thing.

    but yeah, maybe I do have low expectations, but I'm content with them.
  • i'm pretty sure that's what they do already, with the stable version getting only bug fixes and the like, and the development version in cvs getting all the fancy new toys..

    the only reason you dont see more people using the unstable version is because you have to grab it from cvs (or random tarballs which are in various stages of out-of-date-ness) then try and compile all the individual bits which have the high probability of not compiling on any given day. so unless you're one of the developers, it's far easier to just stick with the stable.

    matt
  • i noticed that too.

    i'd been of the impression that people were generally happy with gconf. maybe this is a fairly new development, where a better implimentation idea has popped up.

    anyone have links to discussion on what's up with this gconf vs corba_any thing?

    matt

  • Come on.... OO is an aproach, not a language.

    The language is a tool, though. Some are much more appropriate for a given task or job. Consider an analogy of eating. Using a fork to eat is good. Using a chainsaw probably is a bad idea.
  • I agree totally. I also have issues with the 'medusa index' cron job that comes as a part of the Nautilus package. Near as I can tell, the program creates an XML snapshot of the file system. I don't run my box 24/7, so anacron usually starts it up when I boot up. Even fully niced, this program takes a good 10 minutes to run on my celermine 850/256/2.2.17 and seriously affects system responsiveness to user input. Yes, I could get rid of it (and did), but it was a pain while it lasted...
  • I think it just stores information on the various files, so Nautilus will know how to handle them.

    As for why it takes so long... couldn't tell you.
  • In no way does GTK provide enough human interface abstraction to be used as a cross platform tool
    Actually, I disagree. I've seen the GTK Freeciv [freeciv.org] client running on Windows, and it's sufficiently close to Windows' native widgets that I've never seen anyone get stuck. And that's without using a special theme, which you could do if you wanted.
  • Because anything slower than Window Maker will not be used by me. Hell, I've seen Windows run MUCH faster than Gnome (and KDE, for that matter), which is pathetic.
    --------
    Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
  • I'd like to run Gnome 2.0 sometime before 2005. Besides, Miguel has stated here [ximian.com]:

    Besides, GNOME 2.0 is not the end of GNOME. GNOME 2.0 is just the next major release of GNOME. There is always a chance for us to redeem our pride as programmers, hackers and architects with GNOME 3.0 and GNOME 4.0

    So there will be plenty of opporunity for GNOME to have all the cool stuff that we want to see! Rather than criticize Miguel for being realistic, I say we applaud him for avoiding the mistakes (overly optimistic + feature creep) that delayed Linux 2.4, KDE 2.0, Windows 2000, Gtk 2.0, etc. Miguel is smart enough to realize that for GNOME to effectively compete with Windows and KDE, it will have to release frequently and not remain vapor-ware forever.

  • When you have to have a somewhat steady revenue stream, sometimes you have to release a product that is less than your ideal in the short term, while working toward your long term goals.

    GNOME is no longer a "spare time" effort, and several commercial companies depend upon it. I think Miguel is suggesting an intillegent approach.
  • anybody is 100% free to include gnome with any distribution or whatever they want to give or sell at any price. they just have to include the source. some people will pay for gnome, some people won't. if you want non free software ximian wrote you would probably have to pay for that. the choice is up to me to decide what i want, not to ximian, not to redhat, not to richard stallman.
  • i personally think kde is ugly. i don't like start bars, buttons, etc. what i would like is to not have to use either gnome or kde. just e to manage windows. what does gnome or kde add other than being a wm?
  • what do i need gnome for at all then? this is what i can't figure out, does it provide things like cut and paste or something? i'm not much for gui's so i don't know all the 'technical' definitions of wm and 'desktop environment'. other than applications and window management, what is it in gnome or kde that you have to have in order to have a 'fully functional' (whatever that means) gui desktop thingy?
  • C++ and Java the only choices? C'mon. They are choices, but by no mean the only ones.

    Examples: Ruby, Python, Eiffel, Smalltalk, Object Pascal, Oberon, Modula-3.

    These are just examples I thought up in less than a second.

    Not to mention that C++ does NOT even belong to the good OO languages. Design some large project using UML and implement it in C++ and you'll know why.

    Each one of my examples (except maybe Object Pascal) are by FAR better OO languages than C++.
  • Hm....is anything a "real choice" only because people have done writing a desktop with it?

    I'm sure some Perl affictionados says they can build a desktop too in OO Perl. And a Java/Python/Ruby desktop can be built - well, speed can be an issue, but Perl code runs as fast as C code nowadays, and Ruby code is only half that speed.

    Other than that, there's nothing stopping people using a scripting language to write a desktop. In fact, the interactive nature of scripts makes debugging and maintenance a breeze. Plus, the desktops will be more scriptable than the current ones too.
  • Could be.

    However my feeling is that the 'stable' version, once released, is left to itself. At least, I never read of Gnome 1.2.x ( that is a version with the same functions of 1.2 but with more bug fixing ).
    If I want bugs of 1.2 fixed, I shall wait for 1.4, which also includes large new features ( and new bugs ).

    As developer, I understand it is resource-consuming and not much fun to mantain a double versioning like this.
    But as a user, I'd appreciate it. ( users always demands more than what they get - even if they don't pay for it ;) ).

  • Check it out here: http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/gnome-2.0/delay s.html [ximian.com] It seems that GNOME 2.0 will aim low because of this. What a pity.

  • I posted this to the dot.kde.org forum:

    You make some very good points. Its true the Ximian and Eazel will be making their cash out of seducing wide eyed newbies like my mom into their branded Gnome, complete with paid product placements and banner adds riddled through the interface like MSN and NS6.... but like Mozilla, those of us who care will go ahead and ignore their branded version and use the less commercially polluted Branch. And this is great. The people who don't care (my mom) fund the development by paying the wages of the developers, which gives back to those of us who do care. Not much to complain about at all. I'm damn happy running my Gnome, KDE and Mozilla, and am very thankful for all the companies paying developers to bring them to me faster.


  • Might help add in those "service" offerings from Ximian? You know the ones you are meant to pay for?
  • Are they going to make it more stable than their day jobs this time?
  • GNOME itself is not a WM, though you should use a WM that's somewhat GNOME-compliant. Sawfish and E are the only ones that fit that bill.
  • C++ is the only real OO choice on linux or BSD to write someting like a desktop.
  • Why do you have to "justify" using Gnome? Install both, and let the users choose which ever they like. The two desktop environments can reside on the same machine, without there being any dichotomy. I use predominatly use Gnome 1.2, and like it very much, but I also have KDE 2 installed, and run many of ts apps - from Gnome. I get the best of both, and that puts me ahead of where M$ would like me to be. Compared to the crap that I had to deal with on NT, I am thrilled with my current configuration.
  • Yes Mircosoft, thanks to Gnome and KDE Linux is kicking you off the corporate desktop as well the servers...
  • Anything that gets M$ out of my life is okay with me. The notion of FreeBSD users and Linux users bashing (not the GNU shell) each other seems to me to be as stupid and unproductive as Gnome and KDE users bashing each other...the real enemy is in Redmond!
  • But this is often the mentality many software companies take that lead to increasingly bad software. They don't go back and fix problems because no one will pay for a program that is just bug fixes or infrastructure redesign. The ability to do these things is one of the reasons open source software is superior (IMO). If they're working like a company with a revenue stream, how are they going to act any different? IE, what's the guarantee that they will fix the problems he sees if commercial companies are depending on it and desiring more features?

    Khyron
  • I have read the article and i think it is very smart in the "strategy" approach (aim low and do not loose the essential aspects of a GUI). Personnaly I do not use KDE1 (especcialy KDE2) nor use Gnome. I use www.xfce.org. About Gnome it is uggly. Instead of introduction of newer and better technologies (causing the bin and source breaking) the designers (they should improve the face of the GUI), should put more efforts on the RAM and CPU consumption (making it ligther) this is very difficult ! But the devellopres are now "in the market and in the vendors perpective" because of Ximian (something totaly against the GNU spirit) and they already feel the need to "release something new" just to stay on the front of the war. This is a great error. Please try to introduce some new way of rendering and try to make a light web browser that is capable of show all web content, this is something that would give linux some advantage and that is why Mr B.Gates licensed IntExplorer as freeware, if you win the browser war you win more users to your OS !( some app that will not use the mozilla engine, because it is "bullshit"- sorry! and it will not be never a good end product). Olá Miguel, Felicidades para ti ! Sorry for the english I am European. (Chicobaud)
  • Actually, FreeBSD is kicking them off servers. Linux is for 'l33t sxR!p7 K!|)|)33z.

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  • You forgot your

    . Retard.

    ---

  • I've been running the latest CVS snapshots (debs) of nautilus and IMHO it's not ready for primetime. Unless they have a LOT of debugging code still in there, it's just too slow.

    On my P3-550/256 it runs slooooooooooow, from starting up, opening new windows, rendering files in a directory, etc. Yes, turning off the "extra sweet" icons helps things, but should this really be needed? What sort of machine are they aiming for?

    Now I don't use nautilus that much, or gmc for that matter, because if I want to do file maintenance I'm more comfortable doing it on the command line, but that's just me. However, one of the reasons that sawfish, and gnome is good (IMHO) is that it doesn't require huge amounts of hardware. Now if suddenly nautilus goes in and requires a P3 just to run at an acceptable speed, suddenly down comes gnome (for the people who are installing for the first time anyway, or who don't know how to disable nautilus or replace it with gmc).

    Don't get me wrong, I think it's a pretty cool file manager, I just hope that by the 1.4 release it's not the ram/cpu sucking pig I've seen it to be.
  • 1) Yes, but there's an accompanying cultural tradition that doesn't involve strict release schedules like corporate culture does.

    2) I never claimed they did.

    3) You're referring to "release early, release often". That's The Cathedral and the Bazaar, not Slashdot.

    --
  • 5 seconds to open a a window with only one hundred items???

    Thats terrible performance.. I would expect, on a P2-class machine, to be able to open a window with a hundred items near-instantaneously.

    How long does it really take to do a 'ls -l', parse the result, determine which icon to display for each file, do a visibility check to see which icons need to be shown, render the visible icons/text with antialiasing and bitblt the result into a buffer?

    Consider a game like Quake 3 - Q3 needs to do a similar operation - determine where you are in a large indexed structure, manage caching and loading texture images - analogous to icon images, perform visibility detection - i.e. mark what you can't see in your window so time isn't wasted displaying it, render the resulting image using various compositing aids - texture interpolation, perpective correction etc. and bitblt the result to a framebuffer.

    Except Q3 can do this at least 30 times a second, and can go much, much faster than that with better hardware.

    Of course Q3 uses accelerated graphics, but if software-rendered Quake 2 had a framerate of .2 fps on a Cele-466, i doubt they would have sold many copies.

    The number of instructions per second a C-466 can perform is astounding, how do they manage to misuse so many of them?
  • What exactly is the XML snapshot used for, and why does it take so long to list the whole filesystem?
  • 5 seconds is too slow for me to apply a filter to a graphic, much less open a folder! I think the Alex St. John (DirectX Evangalist) said it very well. "How can they [Microsoft] manage to make IE visably refresh drawing some text and graphics when Carmack is spewing tons of AI-driven monsters on the screen at 30fps?... (some not-so-nice comments about MS programmers follow)" (BTW, this was before hardware acceleration was common!)
  • Oh, you mean kinda like BeOS's attributes in a slower, clunkier, less efficient manner?

    Sorry, had to get the plug in there. Actually, I believe that XFS (which, BTW is as fast as all hell) already has attributes and ReiserFS is getting them soon, so we can soon get rid of clunky hacks like this.
  • KDE has done the same for a long time (pre 2.0) to provide this sort of network transparency ... I read between the lines here to see the Gnome mob checking a bullet on their "KDE feature list" in the ongoing KDE/Gnome mini-conflict (unlike many I don't think this competition is a bad thing - having KDE continually raising the bar for Gnome and vice-versa means we all win)
  • 1) Actually the term "open source" has more to do with releasing the source under an open source license.

    2) And besides gnome didn't decide to "aim low" read the article more carefully.

    3) Another slashdot philosophy is "release early and often."

  • Projects as large as Gnome (or KDE) should follow Linux (or Debian) example and split in a Stable branch ( doing small changes/fixes/cleanup and keeping users happy on short-term ) and an unstable branch ( pursuing the 'blue sky' goals ).

    Not that it solves all problems they have (for instance, which branch should adopt GTK 2.0 ? ), but it should help. The only problem : has Gnome enough developers to do it ? .

  • However my feeling is that the 'stable' version, once released, is left to itself. At least, I never read of Gnome 1.2.x ( that is a version with the same functions of 1.2 but with more bug fixing ).

    That's only because GNOME is a tied set of components, rather than a monolithic system. When they moved to GNOME 1.2, they upgraded all of the components at once, but since then they've patched each part independently as needed. There hasn't been a GNOME 1.2.1 (or 1.2 SP1), but there have been gnome-core-1.2.1, gnome-libs-1.2.1, etc. Different components have different patch numbers now because they've required different amounts of patching, but IIRC every single component has undergone some minor changes since 1.2 was released.

  • But this is a reasonable complaint. He makes several comments that IMO are right on the mark. There are a whole bunch of projects (not just KDE 2.0, which you seem to be focusing on) that have seen serious schedule slippage. Why? Because they tried to do too much. They aimed further than they could see, and that meant that they had serious changes in component APIs as they discovered problems. Every time the API changed, they had to go back and rework the other components that depended on it, resulting in wasted effort.

    I think that Miguel's view is something like this. If they aim to produce the "Blue Sky" version of Gnome, it will wind up taking twice as long as they expect, and users will be stuck with the existing version that whole time. If they go for the "aim low" version instead, it will come out much faster and provide a stepping stone to where they want to be. It's quite likely that they'll actually reach the "Blue Sky" point just as fast as if they had started straight for it, but with the added benefit of an improved version for general use while getting there.

  • Totally agree with this: "often the mentality many software companies take that lead to increasingly bad software"

    There is an old saying, If you can't beat em join em. I have a feeling this is exactly where Ximian is going and it's a really pity. First dirty marketing tactics and now not even planning to release software at it's full potential. This reminds me of some other software company.....

    Open source uses release early release oftern, kinda nice idea and it works with opensource software. Add in a dash of commercial vendor (Sun for instance) and this doesn't work that well because it raises the total cost of ownership when admins have update the desktop software once a month.

    Ximian are going to get pressured by the commerical vendors to release a stable product and on time, something the I can't recall any other opensource project having to do on this scale. Even the kernel doesn't have these presures.

    Also what about the volenteer programmer? The opensource projects I've been involved in, I wanted to do the best possible job and release something of technical excellence, release it oftern, yeah but it's the users risk and once it gets a stable version number it will work and work well. Are the volenteer programmers going to want to continue on a project where one they have release deadlines but also where there code, even indirectly, goes to make commercial companies money?

  • There is a good (and long post) on dot.kde.org by some dude called david. http://dot.kde.org/982011852/

    Kinda sheds some new light on Gnome and what's happening since commercial companies (mainly Xinian) got involved. Made me think about it anyway, I don't agree with some of the points but I'll watch the future with interest.

    Your post above brough it home a bit more, as basically you sum up a risk assesment. When did GPL projects start doing risk assesments? What happened to it'll be done when it's done or lets do the best technical job?

    I'm not saying any of this is wrong, it very subjective, but I do agree with the original poster, he talks about the fact that Opensource doesn't use release schedules or panders to the expectations of share holders. When you answer him you talk about "strategy" and "risks". Is this the turning point for some of the community, I have a dreadful feeling it is.

    I'd like to keep the community aspect of Free software, re-read your post, you can't deny that you have accepted the commericalization of it with all the bad points. My friend, your post looks more like an analysis from a broker than a comment on an GNU software project.

  • Re:KDE idiots (Score:3)

    by MwtrV ( 311470 ) on Wednesday February 14, 2001 @09:01AM (#433867) Journal
    I hate to join in this inevitable flamewar, but I really have to disagree with your view on GNOME and it being the superior offering CURRENTLY. And this is coming from someone who uses GNOME entirely -- I don't even have KDE installed. I have tried a recent incanation of KDE (2.0.)

    KDE is offerring a lot, and GNOME is letting users "preview" a lot. There is substantial difference. The only real advantage I see GNOME having is the OpenOffice commitment, but QT ports of OpenOffice are possible, too. The cutting edge GNOME applications thus far has shown us lots of quirky framework, crashing, and nowhere near completeness in its two biggest offerrings, Nautilus and Evolution. Evolution in its current state looks less then alpha. I haven't tried Nautilus and really don't want to. On both sides, it's a shame developers can't get away from the notion that the file manager must contain web browser capability. Don't get me wrong, Konquerer has nice HTML rendering, but it would do better on its own. It seems hypocritical for Miguel to criticize Unix for not being "componentized" enough, and then stand for an application [Nautilus] that does the work of two. I know his arguement was along different lines -- programming ones -- but it is still easy to point out flaw in Nautiuls from a certain perspective with it in mind. I perfer GNOME over KDE for looks, mainly, but I detest the idea of my file manager being a memory hog due to its own inadaquencies and use of library from mozilla while not being the *COMPLETE* embodiment of Mozilla (an even greater memory hog...)

    Anyhow, these applications that show the new advancement of GNOME come in June/July while KDE is already a whole level above GNOME. I really don't understand your argument at all. I use software I like, but I don't illogically dismiss the competitor (unless it's Microsoft, which we all are morally obligated to despise.) Lastly, the GNOME foundation. It's a commitment, nothing more at this point. Having read the official HTML release regarding their opinion of the GNOME foundation development, they sound like they maintain a healthy outlook -- may the best desktop win, regardless of names behind it.

  • Ever be fixed? (Score:3)

    by khyron664 ( 311649 ) on Wednesday February 14, 2001 @04:30AM (#433868)
    I've read through Miguel's comments and I agree with his reasoning for the most part. GTK+ 2.0 breaking binary and source compatibility is a mess in itself, but I worry that if they "Aim Low" then the problems they see that need to be fixed to obtain the "Blue Sky" will never be done. How many times do developers say "I'll fix that later" and then never do because they run out of time or have to implement too many other features? As a result, problems in the design get worked around and tweaked. It then becomes next to impossible to fix the problems because it would involve and even bigger undertaking than before. I would like to see his ideals met, but I do worry that by not fixing the major problems you see in your product by the next release that those problems will then stay in the product forever. I hope the Gnome team is considering this and realizes this potential danger.

    Khyron

  • Re:What do you mean what a pity?? (Score:4)

    by gawi ( 123608 ) on Wednesday February 14, 2001 @04:15AM (#433869) Homepage
    IMHO it would be a pity if GNOME decided to "aim low" just because of fear of falling behind the competition. This is open source, where we compete on technical merits, not release schedules or the expectations of share holders.

    I think that "aiming low" is a strategy that makes a lot of sense. If I were a GNOME developper, I would prefer having a new version of GNOME containing less changes coming out earlier than something blue six months late. Miguel is proposing a plan that will prevent GNOME to be obsolete at some point. He's also making sure that application will be able to keep up with the changes. He's not pushing the blue sky scenario that much. Think of Blue Sky as the ultimate goal and "Aim Low" as the path.

    Many projects depend on GNOME. Miguel is well aware of that and understand that the key to success is to be there at the right time. It is a matter of risk. Not to release something for a long period of time increase the risk. Some projects have choose that path and are doing fine (like Mozilla and KDE) but they had a hard-time. GNOME doesn't need that risk.

    A schedule for open-source project... I agree that this is something unusual but for something important like GNOME, we cannot afford to miss that. Or at least, we need to define milestones. You're confusing "necessary delays" and "necessary changes". A good plan would make thoses changes appear gradually and safely. Unplanned delays come from bad planning.

    ooh boy, now I'm talking like a project manager...

  • Re:What do you mean what a pity?? (Score:5)

    by RPoet ( 20693 ) on Wednesday February 14, 2001 @01:45AM (#433870) Journal
    How about thinking in long terms instead? In the case of KDE, there was a long period without releases. But in return, KDE2 is quite mature, has a stable and extensible architecture and is now improving incrementally because of the "revolutionary" changes made between versions 1 and 2. And although W2k was very belated, it is now the most stable Windows release ever. If anything, I think Miguels examples of delayed projects only goes to show that such delays and revolutionary design changes are sometimes *necessary* in order to lay the foundations for future development.

    IMHO it would be a pity if GNOME decided to "aim low" just because of fear of falling behind the competition. This is open source, where we compete on technical merits, not release schedules or the expectations of share holders.
    --

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I THINK THEY SHOULD CONTINUE the policy of not giving a Nobel Prize for paneling. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.

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