Desktop issues discussion proposal

[Will Backman]

On Wed, 2004-04-21 at 15:57, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> Razvan Corneliu C.R. d3vi1 VILT (razvan.vilt at linux360.ro) said: 
> > Well... it seems like we have some small issues in the future path of
> > the fedora core desktop (not only for fedora actually).
> > 1) Menus. More is not the best solution, so it's out. We should try to
> > create a replacement, because in some situations the menus are
> > overwhelming.
> > 2) How many applications doing the same thing do we need? Having too
> > many applications can be confusing. A new user (especially one that
> > comes from another OS or from an old Linux distribution version), would
> > be confused and might not make the optimal choice for his situation.
> > Think of how many music players we have, how many editors, how many mail
> > clients. Should all these be in the equivalent of the now deprecated
> > X-Red-Hat-Base? Should we even show all the applications we have
> > installed or just the popular ones? A Microsoft style hide unused
> > entries would be practical? Are there any other solutions, such as 2/3
> > level menu tree?
> 
> This are related. The answer is generally to just move stuff out of
> Core, and into Extras. Eventually, if the user explicitly decides
> to install 20 mail clients, that's their own problem, but the default
> OS install shouldn't do this to them, yes.
> 
> Bill
> 
One difficult issue is the definition of the customer for fedora core. 
A single distribution for both home user and servers.  Many of these
questions are traditionally answered through user studies, and I think
there might be some confusion about who the customer is.  It may be
difficult to hit the middle without disappointing both novice users and
power users.