Thanksgiving Comes Early To Gnome Project

Ryan McDougall writes "Have you ever downloaded a new app, got that tingly feeling, and wanted to express your thanks to the developer that made it happen? Have you flamed a developer over some small issue, but would never consider using another app -- and you want them to know that? Is Gnome your favorite DE, and want to express your appreciation? There is a touching 'thanks-fest' going on at http://gnomedesktop.org/article.php?sid=1099&mode= &order=0&thold=1 . If you answered yes above, please stop by and leave your regards."

Comments

Giving up the love to those guys

[ObviousGuy]

Run DMC:

Money is the key to end all your woes
Your ups, your downs, your highs and your lows
Won't you tell me the last time that love bought you clothes?
It's like that, and that's the way it is

Help! Help!

[Violet Null]

I'm a diabetic, and the sugariness has caused my blood sugar to skyrocket! I...need...insulin...quic...

<gasps, chokes, dies>

Other projects too

[0x0d0a]

It's good that people are giving their thanks to the smart people that have given them so much good stuff on the GNOME project -- but remember also the folks on other projects. Drop the guy that maintains your favorite program a quick thank you note, or consider doing so the next time you come across the next "oh, that's so *cool*" feature that someone's written in a program that you're using -- it really means a lot to them, goes a long way to encourage them to write more, and just keeps the good will flowing. It's just a moment for you, but it's the grease that keeps Open Source running smoothly.

Right On!

[zoikes]

Positive feedback is such an important - yet far too often overlooked - motivator. This is the one greatest lesson I've taken from my boss; in the midst of the most stressful silly-season, he never forgets to provide (well-deserved only) praise.

Reviewing /. postings provides ample evidence of how much easier it is to criticize than to praise...

This should be an example to all of us who use Open Source software -- share your appreciation as far and wide and often as possible.

(nt)

[Anonymous Coward]

nt means no text

not for GNOME 2

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll gladly thank them for GNOME 2 when it has the functionality of GNOME 1.4. In it's current state, I find it completely unusable for my purposes and the development team has taken a page from MS - if you don't fit their style of usability, either conform and give up your power user status to act like a luser wannabe or don't use it. I, for one, miss what GNOME used to be before the egos of the developers became over-inflated. Just because a "usability expert" says my way is wrong for n00bs doesn't mean you should completely rip the functionality out.

I'll keep using GNOME 1.4/Enlightenment until someone replaces the functionality both provide.

Re:not for GNOME 2

[mufasio]

I consider myself somewhat of a power user and while I too miss some of the functionality that is missing from GNOME 1.4 I find GNOME 2 vastly superior to 1.4 not just in eyecandy but b/c it just works and I'm not as tempted to tweak every little setting and instead I tend to get more actual work done as a result. Prior to GNOME 2 I only used 1.4 on brief occasions, I mostly used just a window manager like fluxbox and pekwm(http://pekwm.org - great lesser known wm btw), but I find myself using GNOME 2 all the time now or a combination of pekwm and a GNOME panel or two. Kudos to the GNOME guys for making a great DE that is both visually pleasing and just works!!

Re:not for GNOME 2

[Anonymous Coward]

I tweaked my settings on GNOME/Enlightenment years ago and haven't touched them since... I haven't changed my themes or background in ages either. Once it's setup, it runs EXACTLY how *I* want it to. However, a few people working on GNOME 2 decided they don't care what I want, they're going to make me do everything the way they want. I was happy with GNOME2 alphas until they ripped out viewport support. I've tried GNOME 2 and 2.2 since and no matter how much I'd like to use it, it's too limited for me to get anything done because I can't configure it to work the way I want it to.

Friends using GNOME 2 have also encountered unexpected problems... apparently, gedit exports all of it's files in UNICODE which has caused me to do all kinds of configuration repairs. They complain to me because they can't even do so much as add a program to the menu in any sane fashion. I think the GNOME 2 people listened to their usability experts too much and got too caught up in what is good in theory and forgot about reality. The time I bought up the viewport thing, they were completely uncooperative to the EXTREME (as in, wouldn't talk to me if I used the word "viewport" (workspaces don't cut it at all for me, even as they stand in GNOME 2.2/Sawfish and Metacity) and when I explained the functionality that I was missing (at their request), I was told I wasn't being specific enough even though they damn well knew what I was talking about.) It became an endless loop of them sticking their fingers in their ears and shutting their eyes. I was told to file bugs in bugzilla and the bugs filed by me and others were promptly closed as *WONTFIX* without much discussion of their merit

Frankly, given their attitudes(especially Jeff Waugh and Havoc Pennington), GNOME gives me a great distaste these days. The minute something better than GNOME 1.4 is released, I'll switch for good. If I had the time, I'd simply write my own DE but that's not really an option right now

Re:not for GNOME 2

[mufasio]

Sorry you have had such a bad experience with the GNOME team. I think that both your argument and theirs for simplicity both make good points. I'd hate to see it but if enough people feel the way you do(and it seems as though they do from the reaction i've being hearing about GNOME 2) I wouldn't be surprised to see a fork of GNOME 2 to add back in some the functionality from 1.4. But then again there is always 1.4 to use. I'll take your word on Gedit as I don't use it except for the occasionally viewing of readmes and whatnow(I use a combination of Vim and Emacs for everything else). It seems as though the GNOME team has been open to certain features as long as they don't "clutter" the ui(i.e. if you configure it using gconf-editor).

BTW E17 is looking very promising. Can't wait to give it a try when it is released.

Re:not for GNOME 2

[Anonymous Coward]

I specifically requested the functionality be added with a manual gconf edit if that's what it took, but they still didn't want to listen. Havoc, in particular, seems to have a "not in my library/wm" (libwnck and metacity) type attitude.

I use vi for almost all of my editing, but a lot of new users don't - they like the convenience of gedit but don't have the ability to fix things when a parser can't handle the unicode it spews into a text file.

In the meantime, I'm using a seemingly long forgotten and unmaintained DE simply because of the arrogance of a few key people. I too am waiting for E17 as the next big hope, but it seems like DNF given the fact that the last stable release was almost 3 years ago. KDE doesn't suit me at all (and never had the key features of GNOME 1.4 that I like to begin with). If GNOME 1.4 wasn't already so massive, I'd take over maintaining it myself

Re:not for GNOME 2

[King of the World]

The move to Unicode is needed for internationalisation, and it's one area where Linux is far behind Windows and OSX. For example, try having a login where your full name is in maori or some arabic language. Like the html + browser arguments that rage about whose fault it is when pages don't render correctly, you can't say that it's the web browser at fault or that it's the HTML at fault - it's just that they don't like each other. Unicode isn't soley at fault, and software should be able to handle it. A text editor defaulting to utf-8 is reasonable though.

Re:not for GNOME 2

[Anonymous Coward]

even if almost every app on the system (RH8 and 9, not even a custom job) can't parse unicode config files? I'm not saying unicode itself is a bad thing, but forcing it to be the default regardless of the fact that no non-ASCII characters are being used and it's editing a pre-existing non-utf-8 text file is rather dumb. I've personally had at least 25 calls from friends that have switched to linux since september and have found things broke simply because they tried to tweak a config file. It doesn't put a good face on linux and makes me rather grumpy that I need to constantly ssh into other people's machines to take out unicode from config files.

Re:not for GNOME 2

[Anonymous Coward]

The minute something better than GNOME 1.4 is released, I'll switch for good.

You do realise that GNOME is just a poor copy of KDE 1.0, built to suit some licensing issues that no longer exist?

Re:not for GNOME 2

[Anonymous Coward]

it has features I use that are not present in KDE... I also dislike the feel of KDE quite a bit too. Basically, I'm looking for a VERY minimal DE (we're talking about a corner panel with a couple applets, a quick launcher and a menu button) with a robust window manager (ie, the features like viewports supported in GNOME 1.4/Enlightenment, the ability to remember windowing setting for apps, etc). Last time I tried KDE, viewports (not workspaces - they're not the same thing) weren't present.

Yes, Yes, Yes. Yes, Yes -- Yes. No, No.

[Wee]

I'm a KDE user, everywhere I get the choice. But I've given money to the GNOME people, in spite of their MS affectations vis-a-vis Mono.

Thank them? Sure, they do good work. Thank everyone, too. Thank everyone by giving something back, be it code or money. Do what you can to help out. Competition means choices, and that can only be a good thing.

-B

wow! a virtual circle-jerk!

[Anonymous Coward]

atr least if you go to gnomedex, you can get a reach around.

I would like to thank..

[Anonymous Coward]

god for kde!