Abandon "Default Desktop"

[Lennart Poettering]

On Sat, 02.05.09 19:34, Kevin Kofler (kevin.kofler at chello.at) wrote:

> 
> Adam Williamson wrote:
> > I already explained that, we're circling *again*. The problem is that
> > when you ask someone to make a choice without understanding the options,
> > it tends to frustrate them. This is a well-observed phenomenon in all
> > circles, certainly including computer user interface design.
> 
> This would just be one single choice, and a choice a sizable portion of our
> userbase wants to make (even those who happen to use Fedora's current
> defaults: ask them around how they'd react if Fedora would install KDE by
> default and making it a complex hunt of checkboxes to select GNOME instead,
> also by making all the use-case-specific groups default to KDE apps and
> having the GNOME equivalents part of the GNOME group instead; yet that's
> exactly what's done right now, except with GNOME<->KDE switched around).
> The current solution is highly inconvenient. I can only really recommend
> the KDE live spin for KDE users. Sadly, that one is hidden behind a small
> link on the default download page, with the default download not even
> containing KDE at all.

How naive are you?

Are you aware that Red Hat employs a substantial number of developers
to hack on GNOME in Fedora, but zero to hack on KDE?

Do you believe that if Fedora would start to ship KDE more prominently
that RH would tell its developers to hack on KDE? That is not going to
happen. RH is a GNOME shop.

So, it all comes down to a question of resources: we have substantial
full-time man power working on GNOME in Fedora and only a hand-full of
community people working on KDE in Fedora.

Now, I am not saying that the KDE community work was bad or worse than
the one the GNOME full-timers do, but in the end it boils down to:
GNOME gets a lot of love, KDE a lot less in Fedora.

So, before discussingwhether or not to feature KDE more prominently or
even in the default install please come up with the necessary
resources for development, support and suchlike to come even remotely
near to what we can provide for GNOME.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering                        Red Hat, Inc.
lennart [at] poettering [dot] net
http://0pointer.net/lennart/           GnuPG 0x1A015CC4