Re: What in practice I want to happen ...

On Wed, Oct 16, 2002 at 08:15:12PM +0200, Ricardo Fernández Pascual wrote:
> El mar, 15-10-2002 a las 16:04, Luis Villa escribió:
> > So, I'm probably sticking my nose in where I'm not wanted, but... can I
> > ask you guys (Philip, Ricardo) to enumerate /exactly/ what your
> > differences are? I hear a lot of philosophical, big-picture conflicts,
> > but I have seen very few _specific_ changes outside of marco's email. It
> > seems like it would be useful to publicly enumerate what the practical
> > differences are (which might end up being fairly small) before
> > discussing the fairly drastic path of forking.
> > 
> 
> Sorry for nor answering before but I had a really busy day yesterday and
> I just got home today after a long day. Also, I was a bit upset with all
> this :-(

Hello, ...

As i understand it, since the freeze is soon, gnome 2.2 is scheduled for
soon also, altough i don't really know the dates nor the post 2.2 goals.

What about all of you compromising a bit, and use the current UI,
looking to see if some items have to be changed place, and maybe having
a switch for advanced features or something such.

Then, once galeon 2 is ready for the gnome 2.2 release, it would be time
to discuss more the fundamental directions that you would like to take.
And take plans to implement them in a next release (which, if i am not
wrong, could well be done independently from a new gnome release, isn't
it ?).

This is the only realistic way of doing this, since the freeze is less
than 2 weeks away, so there really is no way you are going to solve the
ideological difference you have right now, and still fix the UI so it
works perfectly.

But still, if you go this way, clearly tell your current user base about
these plans, so they will not feel forgotten (or betrayed) and all
switch to phoenix (which is already really nice) or something else.

Also, about the compromising issue, maybe we should compromise on
marco's terms. Let me explain a bit. If there will be a new release
of standalone galeon later on, who is more likely to upgrade to it,
marco's 'real' users or the other more technical users ?

As i see it, with the massification of linux installs on the desktop,
with lindows, the corporate users and so on, my guess is that there will
be one release based on gnome2.2, and they will stick with it, and not
switch to the post gnome 2.2 galeon nor will they particularly want to
upgrade things, while the technical guys will more probably be upgrade
more often, and more sure to adapt to a different UI layout.

Also, if you go this way, you have time to do some information gathering
of what really you users want, and not decide about it for them, based
only of the small user base you know about, if not only on your
imagination, which may be right, but the problem is that apparently you
all imagine differently.

So, after galeon2 is released, make a survey, and study it. This survey
could be conducted on various levels, like a slashdot poll/question, and
maybe some of your corporate users will be willing to redo something
like what sun did for gnome some time ago (i don't remember if this
included galeon or mozilla). This would flood you with a lot of
information, too much maybe, but i am sure many here will be willing to
help sort it, even if they cannot contribute on a technical/coding
level. And anyway, it will give a natural form of expression to all
those previous galeon 1 users which will most assuredly write to you (or
complain on assorted lists/forums/whatever) and feel angry or betrayed
about what a galeon 2 with marco's UI will mean for them.

So, basically, if you all agree on this idea, let's use the 2 upcoming
weeks to make the best out of the current UI, even adding some
unobtrusive geeky feature or however you call it, but stop from all
standing firm in your position saying that nothing will make you change
your opinion and that the only solution is the fork. Let this be for
after the gnome 2.2 UI freeze/release.

I hope i did speak sense here, and that you will not consider this as
silly raving, be pissed of by it, and make crude jokes on me on the irc
channels.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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