Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 8:53 AM, William Jon McCann < william.jon.mcc...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > This would be a good FAQ. We really do need a gnome-shell FAQ I think. > I > > might help out on the whole community thing on shell if people are > willing, > > it depends on whether this six month project I'm on comes to a close. My > > contributions have tapered off due to a high work and personal load. > > http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/FAQ > > Jon > And thus I prove my own damn point about not reading anything. Touche, Jon. Touche. sri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 8:22 AM, Tomeu Vizoso wrote: > > > What about a community team that gives a place for these issues to be > discussed in more depth? Thinking of something like the marketing team > but with a mission such as "Make GNOME a great place where contribute" > and of course, not exclusive to the Shell, we have this same issue > everywhere. > Dunno, we have a gnome-love group which sort of has a similar charter. Some projects need more love than others. :) > That same team could find ways to improve communication with > downstreams such as RH and Canonical. > I think most of those people are already involved. Jorge, Paul and others are pretty engaged. sri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
2010/6/3 Sriram Ramkrishna : > > > 2010/6/3 Andreas Nilsson >> >> On 06/03/2010 02:54 AM, Seif Lotfy wrote: >> >> >>> >>> And don't get me wrong -- I happen to disagree with some stuff they're >>> doing from time to time. But it doesn't mean I should stop trusting >>> them. >> >> But would't you like to have the points you disagree with be discussed or >> reevaluated? >> I think this is the issue the community is facing. There is a difference >> between "We are going to do it like that because we think its right, and >> that is how it is gonna be" and "We are doing it like that because we think >> it is right, but we are open for discussion" >> Right now the Shell developers are somewhere between both stand points. I >> know some developers who were able to cooperate with them. But I think >> more transparency around discussions and evaluations are missing. >> >> Just a quick note regarding the design procedures here. >> From my experience, Jon and Jeremy hang out both hang out in #gnome-design >> all day and are publically discussing all design issues there (even down to >> the smallest details). >> Me, Hylke, Garrett, Jakub and others have all been giving feedback, >> drawing mockups and evaluating designs, even though, as always, Jon and >> Jeremy have been doing most of the job (as us others have other day jobs and >> priorities). >> - Andreas >> > > This would be a good FAQ. We really do need a gnome-shell FAQ I think. I > might help out on the whole community thing on shell if people are willing, > it depends on whether this six month project I'm on comes to a close. My > contributions have tapered off due to a high work and personal load. http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/FAQ Jon ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
2010/6/3 Andreas Nilsson > On 06/03/2010 02:54 AM, Seif Lotfy wrote: > > > >> And don't get me wrong -- I happen to disagree with some stuff they're >> doing from time to time. But it doesn't mean I should stop trusting >> them. >> > > But would't you like to have the points you disagree with be discussed or > reevaluated? > I think this is the issue the community is facing. There is a difference > between "We are going to do it like that because we think its right, and > that is how it is gonna be" and "We are doing it like that because we think > it is right, but we are open for discussion" > Right now the Shell developers are somewhere between both stand points. I > know some developers who were able to cooperate with them. But I think > more transparency around discussions and evaluations are missing. > > > Just a quick note regarding the design procedures here. > From my experience, Jon and Jeremy hang out both hang out in #gnome-design > all day and are publically discussing all design issues there (even down to > the smallest details). > Me, Hylke, Garrett, Jakub and others have all been giving feedback, drawing > mockups and evaluating designs, even though, as always, Jon and Jeremy have > been doing most of the job (as us others have other day jobs and > priorities). > - Andreas > > This would be a good FAQ. We really do need a gnome-shell FAQ I think. I might help out on the whole community thing on shell if people are willing, it depends on whether this six month project I'm on comes to a close. My contributions have tapered off due to a high work and personal load. sri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
2010/6/3 Sriram Ramkrishna : > > > On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 3:31 AM, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: >> >> the GNOME Shell design and development process, as somebody that looks >> at it (slightly) from the outside, and since its inception, has been >> nothing *but* open. it's your classic open source meritocratic project, >> with two benevolent dictators that ultimately make the calls on >> technology and design. there's *nothing* new. they happen to be RedHat >> employee just because they started the project; GIO has been written by >> a RedHat employee and yet I don't see masses in revolt because the >> community didn't have a greater deal of control on it. hell, half our >> current platform has been written by RH employees and everyone seems to >> be using it, contributing to it and improving it. > > I agree, it's open for the most part. What it suffers from is two things: > 1) despite all the links, people either are not reading them or it's not > good enough to communicate where gnome-shell is going. 2) stop energy can > cut the other way preventing new people from actively joining the project > due to no one managing or channeling the enthusiasm. UI discussions are > hard because there are so many of them, and I know it's tough for developers > to keep chiming in on these things. But I myself have a hard time figuring > out what the end state is since there is still an unfinished quality to the > whole thing and we aren't very far from gnome 3.0 release IMHO. The bottom > line though I think it would be easy for Owen and Jon to have some kind of > community manger to manage the discussions and also be able to create > energy. What about a community team that gives a place for these issues to be discussed in more depth? Thinking of something like the marketing team but with a mission such as "Make GNOME a great place where contribute" and of course, not exclusive to the Shell, we have this same issue everywhere. That same team could find ways to improve communication with downstreams such as RH and Canonical. > If we are having to have Owen put some messages like these, it just a big > downer. Agreed. Regards, Tomeu > Anybody who goes around and starts throwing conspiracy crap about Red Hat or > whatever loses all credibility in the discussion. I've been seeing this > crap for over 10 years, give it a rest. > sri > > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On 06/03/2010 02:54 AM, Seif Lotfy wrote: And don't get me wrong -- I happen to disagree with some stuff they're doing from time to time. But it doesn't mean I should stop trusting them. But would't you like to have the points you disagree with be discussed or reevaluated? I think this is the issue the community is facing. There is a difference between "We are going to do it like that because we think its right, and that is how it is gonna be" and "We are doing it like that because we think it is right, but we are open for discussion" Right now the Shell developers are somewhere between both stand points. I know some developers who were able to cooperate with them. But I think more transparency around discussions and evaluations are missing. Just a quick note regarding the design procedures here. From my experience, Jon and Jeremy hang out both hang out in #gnome-design all day and are publically discussing all design issues there (even down to the smallest details). Me, Hylke, Garrett, Jakub and others have all been giving feedback, drawing mockups and evaluating designs, even though, as always, Jon and Jeremy have been doing most of the job (as us others have other day jobs and priorities). - Andreas ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 3:31 AM, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > > the GNOME Shell design and development process, as somebody that looks > at it (slightly) from the outside, and since its inception, has been > nothing *but* open. it's your classic open source meritocratic project, > with two benevolent dictators that ultimately make the calls on > technology and design. there's *nothing* new. they happen to be RedHat > employee just because they started the project; GIO has been written by > a RedHat employee and yet I don't see masses in revolt because the > community didn't have a greater deal of control on it. hell, half our > current platform has been written by RH employees and everyone seems to > be using it, contributing to it and improving it. > I agree, it's open for the most part. What it suffers from is two things: 1) despite all the links, people either are not reading them or it's not good enough to communicate where gnome-shell is going. 2) stop energy can cut the other way preventing new people from actively joining the project due to no one managing or channeling the enthusiasm. UI discussions are hard because there are so many of them, and I know it's tough for developers to keep chiming in on these things. But I myself have a hard time figuring out what the end state is since there is still an unfinished quality to the whole thing and we aren't very far from gnome 3.0 release IMHO. The bottom line though I think it would be easy for Owen and Jon to have some kind of community manger to manage the discussions and also be able to create energy. If we are having to have Owen put some messages like these, it just a big downer. Anybody who goes around and starts throwing conspiracy crap about Red Hat or whatever loses all credibility in the discussion. I've been seeing this crap for over 10 years, give it a rest. sri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
Hi! > I think that from the outside is easy to misjudge things. Is anybody > reading this thread that has *both* gotten involved in GNOME Shell > development and also feels that the project is being unfairly driven > by a single company? I haven't contributed anything to GnomeShell (yet...) besides an unaccepted patch. Anyway I don't feel that the project is very company driven though some things could possibly be improved. The main issue I see is that there is a mailing list where lots of discussion of interested people happens but the developers and designers hardly comment on any of the ideas. The also results in ideas coming up again and again without a final judgment by the design team. Sure there is also lots of crap on the gnome-shell-list but I think people from outside would at least have a better feeling when their ideas seem to be noticed and discussed by the devs/designers. The answer "discuss this with the design team on IRC" might be a bit discouraging for some people. Other than that, people are generally very helpful on IRC so I don't think there is a general bad attitude against new contributors. Regards, Johannes ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 07:13, Sergey Panov wrote: > On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 20:45 -0700, Sandy Armstrong wrote: >> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Sergey Panov wrote: >> > I sense a suspicion from the outsiders (not RedHat employees) that >> > project is not just manned by the RedHat employees, but controlled by >> > the company >> >> It's controlled by the people doing the work, like any other project. >> >> What does it mean to be "controlled by the company"? It sounds a bit >> far-fetched. > > I was not speaking for myself, I still hope RedHat is an unusual > company. But I can see how people can project their own experiences in > the corporate environment on inner workings of RedHat. In other > companies, the lead engineers are interacting with FOSS communities > directly, but the "dark cardinals"(aka managers) control development > behind the scene. In my experience working with RH employees in the Sugar project, there weren't any "dark cardinals" and they behaved like any other contributor, earning their respect through their own contributions. I haven't followed closely GNOME Shell, but I would expect them to behave in the same way. I think that from the outside is easy to misjudge things. Is anybody reading this thread that has *both* gotten involved in GNOME Shell development and also feels that the project is being unfairly driven by a single company? Regards, Tomeu >> > When design/architecture decisions are made within the >> > company in most of the cases you get, at best, monstrosities like an >> > OpenOffice. >> >> The differences between gnome-shell's development and that of >> OpenOffice are so staggeringly different that I'm not sure how to >> respond to such a statement. > > You did not have to respond - it was not a statement. One of the > candidates proposed a company-agnostic open venue to evaluate/discuss > strategic design/architecture decision. I was trying to explain why it > might be important. > >> I really don't see how any of the critical responses in this thread >> are not already answered by Owen's original post. > > I am not sure what do you mean by "the critical responses in this > thread" and I do not care much about that particular discussion (I guess > I belong to the minority which views things like Gnome Shell or > Zeitgeist as an icing on a cake, a cake with a serious problems I care > about). > > > - S. > > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
Le jeudi 03 juin 2010 à 12:12 +0200, Vincent Untz a écrit : > Really, how is it different from what's happening in any other module? I > can certainly blame Guillaume and Xavier for not being able to have > metacontacts in empathy today while it's something I asked two years > ago; but they've chosen to do it the way they believe is right, which > happens to take more time. What was the way for me to change this? It's > easy: I could have get more involved and send a patch. > > That's the same for GNOME Shell. (Except that for the design part, you > don't send a patch, you participate in a discussion and the discussion > should be well argued.) I think the difference is that the Shell /is/ the GNOME desktop. It's the main change for the GNOME 3 user experience, and it's influencing everything you may do with your desktop. If you're not happy with Empathy, you can switch to Pidgin and still think you're using stock GNOME. But within one year, if you don't use the Shell, you'll feel out of place. That alone is IMHO enough to justify that the Shell design and development is different from others', and requires discussion - just like designing an API requires some amount of feedback from the developers that will use it. I'm not saying the Shell devs are doing this wrong, but here's how I conceive the situation, which explains that people have higher expectations than for other modules. Regards ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
Le jeudi 03 juin 2010, à 11:54 +0200, Seif Lotfy a écrit : > On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 11:47 AM, Vincent Untz wrote: > > And don't get me wrong -- I happen to disagree with some stuff they're > > doing from time to time. But it doesn't mean I should stop trusting > > them. > > But would't you like to have the points you disagree with be discussed or > reevaluated? Sure. And this can happen if I have time. > I think this is the issue the community is facing. There is a difference > between "We are going to do it like that because we think its right, and > that is how it is gonna be" and "We are doing it like that because we think > it is right, but we are open for discussion" > Right now the Shell developers are somewhere between both stand points. I > know some developers who were able to cooperate with them. But I think > more transparency around discussions and evaluations are missing. Really, how is it different from what's happening in any other module? I can certainly blame Guillaume and Xavier for not being able to have metacontacts in empathy today while it's something I asked two years ago; but they've chosen to do it the way they believe is right, which happens to take more time. What was the way for me to change this? It's easy: I could have get more involved and send a patch. That's the same for GNOME Shell. (Except that for the design part, you don't send a patch, you participate in a discussion and the discussion should be well argued.) Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 11:47 AM, Vincent Untz wrote: > Le jeudi 03 juin 2010, à 01:13 -0400, Sergey Panov a écrit : > > On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 20:45 -0700, Sandy Armstrong wrote: > > > On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Sergey Panov wrote: > > > > I sense a suspicion from the outsiders (not RedHat employees) that > > > > project is not just manned by the RedHat employees, but controlled by > > > > the company > > > > > > It's controlled by the people doing the work, like any other project. > > > > > > What does it mean to be "controlled by the company"? It sounds a bit > > > far-fetched. > > > > I was not speaking for myself, I still hope RedHat is an unusual > > company. But I can see how people can project their own experiences in > > the corporate environment on inner workings of RedHat. In other > > companies, the lead engineers are interacting with FOSS communities > > directly, but the "dark cardinals"(aka managers) control development > > behind the scene. > > Let me try to address the suspicion you're highlighting here, with a few > examples we could have if we follow the same kind of rationale: > > - empathy is controlled by Collabora > - gnome-panel is controlled by Novell > - gobject-introspection is controlled by Litl. Or Red Hat now. Or both. > - orca is/was controlled by Sun/Oracle. > - etc. > > It's just the way maintainership works. We can always assume there are > dark cardinals or whatever. Or we can see who are the people working on > those projects and see if we trust them based on what they achieved in > our community. I do trust Guillaume, Xavier, Johan, Colin, Willie and > many other people from various companies. (I kind of trust myself too > ;-)) > > Now, why wouldn't we trust Owen and Jon for GNOME Shell? > We have to trust them there is no point in arguing here. > And don't get me wrong -- I happen to disagree with some stuff they're > doing from time to time. But it doesn't mean I should stop trusting > them. > But would't you like to have the points you disagree with be discussed or reevaluated? I think this is the issue the community is facing. There is a difference between "We are going to do it like that because we think its right, and that is how it is gonna be" and "We are doing it like that because we think it is right, but we are open for discussion" Right now the Shell developers are somewhere between both stand points. I know some developers who were able to cooperate with them. But I think more transparency around discussions and evaluations are missing. > > Vincent > > -- > Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > Cheers Seif -- This is me doing some advertisement for my blog http://seilo.geekyogre.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
Le jeudi 03 juin 2010, à 01:13 -0400, Sergey Panov a écrit : > On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 20:45 -0700, Sandy Armstrong wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Sergey Panov wrote: > > > I sense a suspicion from the outsiders (not RedHat employees) that > > > project is not just manned by the RedHat employees, but controlled by > > > the company > > > > It's controlled by the people doing the work, like any other project. > > > > What does it mean to be "controlled by the company"? It sounds a bit > > far-fetched. > > I was not speaking for myself, I still hope RedHat is an unusual > company. But I can see how people can project their own experiences in > the corporate environment on inner workings of RedHat. In other > companies, the lead engineers are interacting with FOSS communities > directly, but the "dark cardinals"(aka managers) control development > behind the scene. Let me try to address the suspicion you're highlighting here, with a few examples we could have if we follow the same kind of rationale: - empathy is controlled by Collabora - gnome-panel is controlled by Novell - gobject-introspection is controlled by Litl. Or Red Hat now. Or both. - orca is/was controlled by Sun/Oracle. - etc. It's just the way maintainership works. We can always assume there are dark cardinals or whatever. Or we can see who are the people working on those projects and see if we trust them based on what they achieved in our community. I do trust Guillaume, Xavier, Johan, Colin, Willie and many other people from various companies. (I kind of trust myself too ;-)) Now, why wouldn't we trust Owen and Jon for GNOME Shell? And don't get me wrong -- I happen to disagree with some stuff they're doing from time to time. But it doesn't mean I should stop trusting them. Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 20:45 -0700, Sandy Armstrong wrote: > On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Sergey Panov wrote: > > I sense a suspicion from the outsiders (not RedHat employees) that > > project is not just manned by the RedHat employees, but controlled by > > the company > > It's controlled by the people doing the work, like any other project. > > What does it mean to be "controlled by the company"? It sounds a bit > far-fetched. I was not speaking for myself, I still hope RedHat is an unusual company. But I can see how people can project their own experiences in the corporate environment on inner workings of RedHat. In other companies, the lead engineers are interacting with FOSS communities directly, but the "dark cardinals"(aka managers) control development behind the scene. > > When design/architecture decisions are made within the > > company in most of the cases you get, at best, monstrosities like an > > OpenOffice. > > The differences between gnome-shell's development and that of > OpenOffice are so staggeringly different that I'm not sure how to > respond to such a statement. You did not have to respond - it was not a statement. One of the candidates proposed a company-agnostic open venue to evaluate/discuss strategic design/architecture decision. I was trying to explain why it might be important. > I really don't see how any of the critical responses in this thread > are not already answered by Owen's original post. I am not sure what do you mean by "the critical responses in this thread" and I do not care much about that particular discussion (I guess I belong to the minority which views things like Gnome Shell or Zeitgeist as an icing on a cake, a cake with a serious problems I care about). - S. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Sergey Panov wrote: > I sense a suspicion from the outsiders (not RedHat employees) that > project is not just manned by the RedHat employees, but controlled by > the company It's controlled by the people doing the work, like any other project. What does it mean to be "controlled by the company"? It sounds a bit far-fetched. > When design/architecture decisions are made within the > company in most of the cases you get, at best, monstrosities like an > OpenOffice. The differences between gnome-shell's development and that of OpenOffice are so staggeringly different that I'm not sure how to respond to such a statement. I really don't see how any of the critical responses in this thread are not already answered by Owen's original post. Sandy ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 11:31 +0100, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 11:57 +0200, Patryk Zawadzki wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 2:11 AM, Owen Taylor wrote:
> > > "The secret master plan"
> > >
> > > Boy do I wish I had a secret master plan tucked in a drawer
> > > somewhere! It would be really useful
> > >
> > > To the extent we have a master plan, it's in two documents
> > > that everybody has seen:
> > >
> > > http://www.gnome.org/~mccann/shell/design/GNOME_Shell-20091114.pdf
> > > http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/RoadmapTwoThirtyOne
> >
> > I think the community would love to see some more "why" behind the "how" :)
> >
> > For example I'd like to know why shell reinvents the graphical toolkit
> > and comes with a (hardcoded?) theme which in turn makes it look out of
> > place. Or why JS and not LUA or Python. I'm sure there was some
> > evaluation behind these decisions but I'm not even sure where to dig.
>
> how about starting from the wiki page of the project? there's a lot of
> information, rationales and links to discussions. but, ultimately: it's
> a choice from the maintainers and I expect people accept decisions from
> the maintainers of a project because - well, they are the ones doing the
> damned work.
I second Patryk's observation that it is not easy to fish info from the
discussion archives. There should be some easy to find FAQ for
developers that are curious about "why", not just "how" and "what"
> > It's details like this that make the project look more like OpenOffice
> > than a GNOME app ("here's the resulting code" versus "here are the
> > plans and the rationale, please discuss").
>
> what's fundamental is that not everything should be open to discussion.
...
>
> I wouldn't assume people started questioning every single decision taken
> 12 months ago (or even farther back) because that's an incredible amount
> of what the damn kids today call "stop energy" - and in general it's not
> even worth following up to every crank that sends an email saying "you
> should have used LUA!!11!1 JS suckzZzZzZ".
>
...
> +
>
> the GNOME Shell design and development process, as somebody that looks
> at it (slightly) from the outside, and since its inception, has been
> nothing *but* open. it's your classic open source meritocratic project,
> with two benevolent dictators that ultimately make the calls on
> technology and design. there's *nothing* new. they happen to be RedHat
> employee just because they started the project;
I sense a suspicion from the outsiders (not RedHat employees) that
project is not just manned by the RedHat employees, but controlled by
the company. When design/architecture decisions are made within the
company in most of the cases you get, at best, monstrosities like an
OpenOffice.
> GIO has been written by
> a RedHat employee and yet I don't see masses in revolt because the
> community didn't have a greater deal of control on it. hell, half our
> current platform has been written by RH employees and everyone seems to
> be using it, contributing to it and improving it.
>
> ciao,
> Emmanuele.
>
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Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 14:40 +0200, Patryk Zawadzki wrote: > On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 1:14 PM, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > > On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 12:52 +0200, Patryk Zawadzki wrote: > >> GNOME Shell is radically different here so it's not the "usual > >> case". I wondered not about the supposed one-upping the color choices > >> but about actually using the current theme instead. That's hardly what > >> one would call bike-shedding. > > the "current theme" is CSS and some assets; > > Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was referring to the current GTK+ theme > (with the recently intoduced dark variant support, hint, hint) :) The GTK+ theme for GTK 3.x will change in the short future, and hopefully have *proper* dark theme support (as opposed to my attempts at using Darkilouche for the colour theme in the gnome3 branch of gtk-engines). ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 1:14 PM, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 12:52 +0200, Patryk Zawadzki wrote: >> GNOME Shell is radically different here so it's not the "usual >> case". I wondered not about the supposed one-upping the color choices >> but about actually using the current theme instead. That's hardly what >> one would call bike-shedding. > the "current theme" is CSS and some assets; Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was referring to the current GTK+ theme (with the recently intoduced dark variant support, hint, hint) :) -- Patryk Zawadzki ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
From: Emmanuele Bassi
>> It's details like this that make the project look more like OpenOffice
>> than a GNOME app ("here's the resulting code" versus "here are the
>> plans and the rationale, please discuss").
>
> what's fundamental is that not everything should be open to discussion.
>
> sure, if you disagree on the choice of colors in the CSS theme then you
> can discuss it with the UI design team - as long as you avoid
> bike-shedding them to death because that's not nice and all; but if you
> want to discuss the language of choice then you misunderstood how an
> open source project works. the gnome-shell developers decided, and you
> either follow them or you can start writing your own shell in your own
> language.
Probably offtopic, sorry, but ...
After read this paragraph, and reading again GS roadmap [1], I
realized that theming are not included in the issues listed on the
accessibility section of this roadmap. Anyway, Willie Walker
identified this as one of the big issues of GS towards GNOME 3.0. [2].
There is any possibility to include theming in the "accessibility
issue list" ?
As Emmanuele Bassi said, right now there are people with a deep
knowledge on design and usability working on GS, at it would be
awesome if they could be involved here (and it seems that they are
interested [3]).
BR
[1] http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/RoadmapTwoThirtyOne
[2] http://live.gnome.org/Accessibility/GNOME3#Theming
[3] http://blogs.gnome.org/wwalker/2010/03/02/gnome-usability-hackfest/
===
API (apinhe...@igalia.com)
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Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 12:52 +0200, Patryk Zawadzki wrote: > > sure, if you disagree on the choice of colors in the CSS theme then you > > can discuss it with the UI design team - as long as you avoid > > bike-shedding them to death because that's not nice and all; but if you > > want to discuss the language of choice then you misunderstood how an > > open source project works. the gnome-shell developers decided, and you > > either follow them or you can start writing your own shell in your own > > language. > > Fair enough but in the past GNOME used to share the common graphical > design. the HIG is not really "a common graphical design", otherwise the rules in there would be much more stringent than they actually are. and it would be kept up to date. ;-) > GNOME Shell is radically different here so it's not the "usual > case". I wondered not about the supposed one-upping the color choices > but about actually using the current theme instead. That's hardly what > one would call bike-shedding. the "current theme" is CSS and some assets; changing it could be interesting, but there are motivations that descend from the overall design - the black is used to connote the negative space, and maintain the overall attention of the user not on the chrome, but on the content (the user's workspace(s)). it's a common user interaction approach that is used by authoring tools and by photo editing software. again, this is generally defined in the design guidelines. could it be better? yes - what couldn't be. but it's there, and if it's unclear just get hold of Jon on IRC and pester him to make it clear(er) on the wiki. > But then again, it's now too late to discuss any of the choices as the > code is already there. It would still be nice to have a single > information source that isn't just linking to other people's blogs. :) that would be the design PDF, for the design side. the PDF is in some cases high level, or concise in the rationale; could be defined the "apocalypse". the blog posts are the "exegeses", done by the designers to explain and expand the apocalypse. we might need some "synopsis" as well: a short write up for each technology and design bit - though that should probably be done after the user testing and after the bulk of the features have landed, to verify whether or not the design holds up in the first place. ciao, Emmanuele. -- W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.name B: http://blogs.gnome.org/ebassi ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 12:31 PM, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 11:57 +0200, Patryk Zawadzki wrote:
>> I think the community would love to see some more "why" behind the "how" :)
>>
>> For example I'd like to know why shell reinvents the graphical toolkit
>> and comes with a (hardcoded?) theme which in turn makes it look out of
>> place. Or why JS and not LUA or Python. I'm sure there was some
>> evaluation behind these decisions but I'm not even sure where to dig.
> how about starting from the wiki page of the project? there's a lot of
> information, rationales and links to discussions. but, ultimately: it's
> a choice from the maintainers and I expect people accept decisions from
> the maintainers of a project because - well, they are the ones doing the
> damned work.
To be clear, I did not write to ask anyone to change the
implementation. I only pointed to the kind of information I feel is
missing. I did start with the wiki page of the project but it links to
a lot of blog posts so I gave up before I reached the post Johannes
linked to.
>> It's details like this that make the project look more like OpenOffice
>> than a GNOME app ("here's the resulting code" versus "here are the
>> plans and the rationale, please discuss").
> what's fundamental is that not everything should be open to discussion.
>
> sure, if you disagree on the choice of colors in the CSS theme then you
> can discuss it with the UI design team - as long as you avoid
> bike-shedding them to death because that's not nice and all; but if you
> want to discuss the language of choice then you misunderstood how an
> open source project works. the gnome-shell developers decided, and you
> either follow them or you can start writing your own shell in your own
> language.
Fair enough but in the past GNOME used to share the common graphical
design. GNOME Shell is radically different here so it's not the "usual
case". I wondered not about the supposed one-upping the color choices
but about actually using the current theme instead. That's hardly what
one would call bike-shedding.
But then again, it's now too late to discuss any of the choices as the
code is already there. It would still be nice to have a single
information source that isn't just linking to other people's blogs. :)
--
Patryk Zawadzki
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Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 11:57 +0200, Patryk Zawadzki wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 2:11 AM, Owen Taylor wrote:
> > "The secret master plan"
> >
> > Boy do I wish I had a secret master plan tucked in a drawer
> > somewhere! It would be really useful
> >
> > To the extent we have a master plan, it's in two documents
> > that everybody has seen:
> >
> > http://www.gnome.org/~mccann/shell/design/GNOME_Shell-20091114.pdf
> > http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/RoadmapTwoThirtyOne
>
> I think the community would love to see some more "why" behind the "how" :)
>
> For example I'd like to know why shell reinvents the graphical toolkit
> and comes with a (hardcoded?) theme which in turn makes it look out of
> place. Or why JS and not LUA or Python. I'm sure there was some
> evaluation behind these decisions but I'm not even sure where to dig.
how about starting from the wiki page of the project? there's a lot of
information, rationales and links to discussions. but, ultimately: it's
a choice from the maintainers and I expect people accept decisions from
the maintainers of a project because - well, they are the ones doing the
damned work.
> It's details like this that make the project look more like OpenOffice
> than a GNOME app ("here's the resulting code" versus "here are the
> plans and the rationale, please discuss").
what's fundamental is that not everything should be open to discussion.
sure, if you disagree on the choice of colors in the CSS theme then you
can discuss it with the UI design team - as long as you avoid
bike-shedding them to death because that's not nice and all; but if you
want to discuss the language of choice then you misunderstood how an
open source project works. the gnome-shell developers decided, and you
either follow them or you can start writing your own shell in your own
language.
I wouldn't assume people started questioning every single decision taken
12 months ago (or even farther back) because that's an incredible amount
of what the damn kids today call "stop energy" - and in general it's not
even worth following up to every crank that sends an email saying "you
should have used LUA!!11!1 JS suckzZzZzZ".
as for design, it's even simpler: just because open source convinced a
lot of hackers that they could design user interfaces it's a pure fact
that not everyone should even be allowed to design. you need training,
and you need specific competences. mocking up something in Inkscape is
*not* one of those competences - though it helps. after working for two
years with a great design team I can only have the greatest amount of
respect for whoever does this for a living. people sending random
mockups are far, far away from the kind of people you want contributing
design ideas for a successful user experience. whoever thinks otherwise
is seriously mistaken, and lives in a fantasy land of ponies and
unicorns and rainbows.
+++
the GNOME Shell design and development process, as somebody that looks
at it (slightly) from the outside, and since its inception, has been
nothing *but* open. it's your classic open source meritocratic project,
with two benevolent dictators that ultimately make the calls on
technology and design. there's *nothing* new. they happen to be RedHat
employee just because they started the project; GIO has been written by
a RedHat employee and yet I don't see masses in revolt because the
community didn't have a greater deal of control on it. hell, half our
current platform has been written by RH employees and everyone seems to
be using it, contributing to it and improving it.
ciao,
Emmanuele.
--
W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.name
B: http://blogs.gnome.org/ebassi
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Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Wed, Jun 02, 2010 at 11:57:49AM +0200, Patryk Zawadzki wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 2:11 AM, Owen Taylor wrote:
> > "The secret master plan"
> >
> > Boy do I wish I had a secret master plan tucked in a drawer
> > somewhere! It would be really useful
> >
> > To the extent we have a master plan, it's in two documents
> > that everybody has seen:
> >
> > http://www.gnome.org/~mccann/shell/design/GNOME_Shell-20091114.pdf
> > http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/RoadmapTwoThirtyOne
>
> I think the community would love to see some more "why" behind the "how" :)
>
> For example I'd like to know why shell reinvents the graphical toolkit
> and comes with a (hardcoded?) theme which in turn makes it look out of
> place. Or why JS and not LUA or Python. I'm sure there was some
> evaluation behind these decisions but I'm not even sure where to dig.
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell links to a blogpost explaining the
rationale
> It's details like this that make the project look more like OpenOffice
> than a GNOME app ("here's the resulting code" versus "here are the
> plans and the rationale, please discuss").
Seems very open to me.
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Regards,
Olav
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Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
Hi!
>
> I think the community would love to see some more "why" behind the "how"
> :)
>
> For example I'd like to know why shell reinvents the graphical toolkit
> and comes with a (hardcoded?) theme which in turn makes it look out of
> place. Or why JS and not LUA or Python. I'm sure there was some
> evaluation behind these decisions but I'm not even sure where to dig.
>
> It's details like this that make the project look more like OpenOffice
> than a GNOME app ("here's the resulting code" versus "here are the
> plans and the rationale, please discuss").
Well, there is this link in the Technology"-section of
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell and it explaining some of these:
http://blog.fishsoup.net/2008/10/22/implementing-the-next-gnome-shell/
Regards,
Johannes
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Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell
On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 2:11 AM, Owen Taylor wrote:
> "The secret master plan"
>
> Boy do I wish I had a secret master plan tucked in a drawer
> somewhere! It would be really useful
>
> To the extent we have a master plan, it's in two documents
> that everybody has seen:
>
> http://www.gnome.org/~mccann/shell/design/GNOME_Shell-20091114.pdf
> http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/RoadmapTwoThirtyOne
I think the community would love to see some more "why" behind the "how" :)
For example I'd like to know why shell reinvents the graphical toolkit
and comes with a (hardcoded?) theme which in turn makes it look out of
place. Or why JS and not LUA or Python. I'm sure there was some
evaluation behind these decisions but I'm not even sure where to dig.
It's details like this that make the project look more like OpenOffice
than a GNOME app ("here's the resulting code" versus "here are the
plans and the rationale, please discuss").
Cheers,
--
Patryk Zawadzki
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