Re: Re: Changes... Galeon 1.3.21... ick...

On 2005-06-21 23:43, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:
> I suggest that you read some of the UI research done by groups like
> Apple and GNOME. They are very enlightening. Most people don't use
> most of the features given to them, and all these features do is
> create extra bloat, bugs and confusion for the average user.

If Galeon is going after the mainstream browser market, then you are
right.  Most people will never use most features.  But what the Galeon
developers seem not to have come to terms with (yet?) is that most
users won't upgrade to a different browser at all.  The day Galeon
ships with MSWindows is the day that it needs to have a simple, clean,
next-to-useless option set.

What makes someone decide to use Galeon?  First, there's Linux.  Not a
lot of lusers go out and install a fringe OS unless they already want
more control over their computers than Microsoft permits them.  Then
they're likely to choose KDE, not because it's better-maintained, less
buggy and cleaner than Gnome is (although in my experience this is
true) but because KDE is the default in many distros.  Does Gnome ship
as the default browser in most KDE setups?  Not bloody likely.  People
switching from KDE will often do so because KDE is slow and
bloated--much like Gnome--so there's a good chance that our user
decides to run tvtwm or WindowMaker...  And so on.  As we all know,
running Galeon outside of Gnome has its own set of challenges...

You get the idea.  The ONLY people who even know that Galeon exists
are those who invest significant time in choosing and learning about
their software.  But the developers have somehow confused Galeon with
a mainstream browser, and are crippling it to make it more palatable
to a crowd who will never know it exists.

The reason to pursue this strategy is if 1) Galeon is the default
browser of Gnome, 2) Gnome is the default environment of a major Linux
distribution, and 3) Linux is a very reasonable choice of OS for
clueless lusers.  Could happen, I admit, but don't hold your breath.

--
Ben Pearre          http://hebb.mit.edu/~ben       PGP: CFDA6CDA
         Free music at http://hebb.mit.edu/FreeMusic
Don't let Bush read your email!             http://www.gnupg.org


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