Why is xscreensaver removed in favor of gnome-screensaver

[Miles Lane]

On 2/17/06, Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/17/06, Miles Lane <miles.lane at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Personally, I think the Gnome developers' know-it-all attitude is
> > stupid and offensive.  Dang it!  They take their bloody "present no
> > options to the users" too far!  Idiots!
>
> Blatant name calling doesn't make for a constructive debate.
> I humbly suggest you make an effort to remove the emtionally loaded
> language when you are trying to make a point. If you want to drag this
> discussion down into the realm of overly generalized name-calling to a
> community of people, I'll be more than happy to do this with you in
> private conversation.
>
> Choosing to use this sort of emtional outburt in a public discussion
> is not helpful and only points out that you are also capable of "going
> to far" with your overreaching assumption making. I'm not fond of
> blatant hypocrisy, so please try to keep your over-reaching assumption
> making about the entire gnome development community out of this
> discussion.
>
> If you have a problem with the decision making, read up on previous
> discussion about gnome-screesaver and make rational arguments to the
> upstream developers.  There maybe a way forward to change how this
> works by incorporated per-user configs into GConf for individual
> screensavers and still have site wide policy without disrupting UI.
> But you'll have to care enough about the issue to keep your emtions in
> check and handle yourself maturely in the discussion. Calling the
> people you are trying to convince to change their minds idiots has a
> particularly low probability of success especially if you don't have
> an established working relationship with them as peers.

I used to have an established working relationship with them.
Then Ximian got the "simplified UI" bug and all my pleas and
reasoned arguments were discarded.  Now this issue of user
options is a bit of an open wound for me.  I have volunteered
_years_ to Linux development.  I wouldn't be so frustrated
if this general issue of empowering Gnome users were
resolved.  It seems it will take someone else to cause a shift
in the "oversimplified UI" policy, because I have no desire to
wade into Gnome bugzilla again and be blown off by Jeff Waugh
and others.  The great thing about submitting bugs to the
Evolution project was that a lot of them got addressed in the
early days.  I had a huge positive influence back then.  Slowly,
that changed and my bug reports were left to languish before
being closed in great waves.  I know Luis Villa (once Gnome
Bugzilla/Test dude) and we worked together well for a while.
Eventually, important issues I raised  (e.g. the lameness of
Yelp) were ignored so often I just couldn't continue.

Sad,
         Miles