Re: why do we need change?

[Riccardo]

Hey,

> They want themeability and they want the freedom to endlessly customize 
> thier
> desktop. This is something that people have been able to do on Windows 
> for
> years.
well.. this is also a risk of making things complex. Once I was a fan of 
super-configurable environments (I remember being an eager AmiPro user 
from Lotus... where toolbars and macros where omnipresent and more 
powerful than Mr. Gates even started thinking about them) I grew up and 
I prefer a reasonable interface, well designed which I can easily 
customize to a small extent but not turn up-side-down, since I will just 
adapt to it. Thus making things locked and unmodifiable without any 
reason is bad, but I wouldn't thrive for total configurability over 
everything.
On the other hand, flexibility is not only in the gui and the gui 
elements, but it goes also in the file and libraries alyout, the way 
things collaborate, startup.... and there gnustep is still quite 
"locked".

Also.. there are good counter-examples. The Macintosh and the Zeta 
(former BeOS) have, even if one big and one small, strong advocates and 
followers. It amazes me how many developers, programs and utilites are 
there for Zeta. Yet their configurability is not stellar. I think people 
like it for that too.
In macosx 10.0.. you couldn't even move the dock to another place of the 
screen. And themes? being able to change the color of some controls, is 
that powerful themability (I know macosx can do more, but not by 
default)? come on.... yet macos has tons zealots, followers and 
developers.

Thus I think that while some color scheming and theming is interesting 
and should be accomplished, it is absolutely not a showstopper and I 
don't think it is our major problem. it is more of an excuse. People 
don't see anything powerful in gnsutep, smell the lack of apps, notice 
the lack of polish in many corners and then resort in accusing the looks 
and the lack of themes, but I really think this is a shallow analysis.

> But this is about more than themeability, among other things it's also 
> about
> the fact that we also need to make it so that GNUstep is friendlier to 
> people
> who aren't experts.  Currently installing GNUstep is much harder than 
> it should
> be.  Most novices are unable to install all of the dependencies.
well.. although I agree here.. I have two points that we should think 
about
1. if you use the Xlib backend as I do... dependencies are really small, 
only core graphic libraries that are usually already present (maybe 
except for the headers) and xml/xslt stuff.
2. the average user is not going to build gnustep by himself. And he 
shouldn't either. Binary packages should be ready for him for his 
favourite linux/bsd/solaris/windows/whatever platform. Those tools 
usually track dependencies or the packagers take care to note 
dependencies on the download pages. This lessens the problem quite a bit.
I am one of the first persons to use a package instead of building 
myself if I can, there are thousands of reasons for that. I am also 
disturbed when the package is "broken" or "old and I need an unavailable 
newer version" and I end up installing things myself.

> Change is a fact of life in this industry more than any other.  I have 
> heard
> the expression "if airplane technology had advanced as fast as computing
> technology, we would all be flying around at lightspeed in little boxes 
> the
> size of a matchbox" many many times.
yes, those things have been told.. Mr. Gates made similar remarks about 
cars.
Now, a comment gets ot of the scope of this email... but...
Airplanes got always more efficient, getting faster and consuming less 
fuel. And PC's? (when a P4 takes more time to boot and load a big office 
suite.. and your mom makes you notice that the old macSE is ready with 
an admittedly simple word processor in much less time?)
Airplanes and cars got more and more reliable, requiring little 
maintainance...
Airplanes don't give you a message that the system is overloaded when 
you turn the stick and let you wait...
Airplanes don't need to be restarted while flying just because "your 
airspeed indicator has become unstable, ti has been quit, no other 
flight instruments have been affected".
Airplanes go up when you give more throttle and go down if you do the 
opposite, they turn left when you want it. Well, we all know you ned to 
hit start to shut-down on a famous operating system (and now... on many 
dumb desktop emulations of it on unix too).

Although these remarks may be funny, I don't want just to troll. The 
message I wanted to convey is that  computers and airplanes both 
evolved, but in very different ways with different goals. Many reasons 
may be behind this, one of them is I think the way competition and the 
market of computers evolved. We as an open source project which is not 
bound to any commercial institution are free not to make the same 
errors. Also just copying mistakes made by others just because "people 
are used to them now" would be stupid. If a windows users wants to 
migrate to linux without changing his habits, he can go to kde, gnome...

> We are, but we need to be more than OpenStep, if the project is to 
> survive.  I,
> for one, am not satisfied with just a few users liking our stuff.  We 
> need to
> make GNUstep appeal to a larger audience.  As I said before there are 
> some
> companies I have spoken to which are interested in porting applications 
> from
> Mac OS X to GNUstep on Linux or Windows.   I have seen people hesitate 
> in using
> GNUstep because of it's interface.
well, I agree and I am not writing you wrong. But we have (potentially) 
a very wide audience. From serious developers who want a tool for unix 
and windows to more geek linux user who want the total customizeable and 
colorful desktop and in the middle there is almost everything. Trying to 
accomodate evryone by adding features everyone wants might turn out a 
big bowl that doesn't fit anyone at the end. This is what I feel is 
happening in the gtk/gnome community for example.

> In some cases, this might mean integrating features that not everyone 
> will
> like, but if it means more users, then it will mean more developers, 
> and thus
> more apps.
as always, it is a vicious circle :( Anyway things could be integrated 
so that they could be disabled for people that are not interested in 
them.

now I have written too much already...

cheers,
  R