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The GNOME Roadmap
glockenspieler writes "Recently on the the Gnome Foundation mailing list, Dave Camp posted a draft Gnome Roadmap for versions 2.8 and Beyond. Issues up for discussion are Mozilla/Epiphany, incorportation of peer to peer filesharing, blogging, addition of more media widgets, and many others. Time for Gnome users to weigh in on what improvements that you would like to see. If that's not enough, then there's always the the C# versus Java versus ? discussion."
I feel just the opposite. I think Gnome's interface is elegant and KDE's inteface, while very colorful, it cluttered and knobby.
I can't put my finger on what it is, but there is something about KDE's interface that makes me angry. That may sound dumb, but I can only use KDE for a short while because it is emotionally exhausting to me and always leaves me feeling irritated.
KDE does many things right it my opinion (for example, their support for multiple keyboard layouts is excellent), but something about KDE is emotionally draining to me so I don't use it.
Why not make an installation system that works as simply as clicking setuppackage.msi is in Windows and let the other problems solve themselves?
Oh man, you just opened the floodgates with this one. Prepare to be lectured on why the 37 different packaging standards make software installations easier than with Windows. Of course, the reality of the situation is that it's a crapshoot as to whether or not a package will work with whichever one of the 10,000 Linux distributions you happen to be running (chances are it won't), but hey.
Why not just make a working desktop first?
That would require setting aside this childish "Linux has to do every single thing that every single person on the planet could want it to do, and then some" attitude that plagues the community. No one wants to sit down and say "OK, let's mandate that all distributions have, at minimum, THESE particular packages that operate in THESE particular ways." No, no. That stifles choice somehow. Of course, everyone conveniently ignores the fact that some amount of standardization has to occur before Linux can be accepted on the desktop.
Yeah, this year will be the year of linux-on-the-desktop
You must have missed how the zealots are spinning this one now. See, there's no particular "year of Linux on the desktop" anymore, now it's "EVERY year that Linux gains popularity it's getting closer to the desktop!" Some clever guy came up with that one after everyone pointed out that Slashdot has been proclaiming every year since 1998 as the "year of Linux on the desktop."
It's especially amazing, considering that Gnome is an important part of GNU. What's up, Gnome foundation? Don't you care about documentation freedom?
What about the vector graphics plans?
Is a SVG based window manager so far away?
Ditch metacity as the windows manager. Please. Also, after installing both the latest Gnome and KDE I can say without any doubt (at least on my machine and configuration, etc) that KDE is *much* faster than GNOME as almost everything now. It's now GNOME that feels bloated and out of touch.
*Fortitudo, aequitas, fidelitas.*
You know what I'd like to see? Real virtual desktops. The current "virtual desktops" are really just virtual screens, not desktops. Full virtual desktops should act as completely separate desktops, with their own set of icons, etc. Obviously this would not be for everyone, but I would love to see it as a user-selectable option.
This is related to a problem I have with Gnome 2.4 (I don't know if it's been fixed in 2.6): when I double-click a desktop icon, I expect that program to launch on the desktop where I clicked the icon. But if I switch desktops before the program window shows up, it opens in that desktop instead. Maddening, especially on a slow computer such as mine! Also, dragging items between virtual desktops needs to be made easier (again, apologies if this has improved in 2.6).
I also have to second the idea of a sound server replacement, though I'm not thrilled that it's in the "Long Term" section of the roadmap. The current situation is frankly an embarrassment for a desktop environment of Gnome's stature.
In the pie-in-the-sky department, I would love to see options for a Mac-style menu bar, and Acorn-style file choosing via drag-and-drop rather than with a file selector dialog.
Mike
It wasn't mentioned in the article at all. Neither was the word "speed" or the word "faster".
I guess Gnome is destined to remain the slowpoke of the GUI world. Who would have thought KDE would be the quick one.
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