GNOME Foundation Elections Results Are In

PaaChhaa writes "The GNOME Foundation membership and elections committee has announced the preliminary results of this year's elections for the board of directors. There are a few new faces this year, and Miguel de Icaza, whose candidacy was rejected last year due to late submission, is back. The run up to this year's election saw a threat of boycott, which ultimately resulted in the online publication of the foundation's financial records. Also, a heated discussion followed the posting of the list of ten questions, and the opinions of the candidates and other foundation members on these issues can be found in the foundation-list archives for the months of November and December. A notable exclusion from this year's board is GNOME's release manager Jeff Waugh. who didn't run at all."

Comments

Sun employees

[uid100]

Do any of these guys (gals?) work for Sun?

Re:Sun employees

[monkease]

Come on... rtfa...

Bill Haneman (85 votes) - Sun Microsystems

And he was a few places removed from the winners.

Mena

[febuiles]

Why the new faces point to Federico Mena? He's been working in GNOME for more time that most of the known developers.

Unexpected results

[AbbyNormal]

The new president of the association: "George Walker Bush".

We told them not to use those Diebold Machines. You'd think Gnome would read Slashdot or something.

Re:Unexpected results

[mforbes]

What's really amazing is that of the 324 registered voters, GWB won the votes of all two hundred thousand!

Re:Unexpected results

[D-Cypell]

Bah! No way would they use unproven, unreliable machines that provide absolutely no audit trail for something as important and the gnome board of directors election!

No More Spatial Browsing Please

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I'll take this oppertunity to complain about GNOME's current love affair with spatial browsing, in the hope that it will get noticed.

Please, please take away spatial browsing. Noone I know wants it. Every time someone talks to me about their first foray into Linux(avec GNOME) they complain about it. They all hated it in Win95 and they don't want it now. They all leave with the impression that Naultilus( and by extendtion Linux) is, well, unusable. (They're only lusers, bless them.)

Seriously leave spatial browsing as an option from now on. Not the default.

All replys, comments and links to points of view in favour of spatial browsing are welcome, as I am genuinely facinated and bemused by this point of view. Who exactly like spatial browsing and why?!

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[Curtman]

Well said. Spacial Nautilus the kind of thing that looks good to developers because someone put forth a proposal and mentioned the HIG enough times. Look below the surface, and you'll see HIG as the reasoning for everything, often both sides of an argument simultaneously.

I really believe its time for HIG v2, so we can see if things are improving from the user perspective, or getting worse. Nautilus on the whole is VERY confusing to the users that I have introduced to it. Just try explaining why removing the toolbar is a good thing to any reasonably minded person. All you'll get is a blank stare.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[Fancia]

Er, that should read "is awful, too." >.; I don't mean to sound like I didn't actually know what you were talking about.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[aldoman]

No no no no no.

It should just _work_. Not offering multiple ways of doing things and adding hundreds of options. Mozilla Suite vs Firefox should be reason enough to show that people DON'T like LOTS of loads of options.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[J. T. MacLeod]

No, it shows that people tend to like streamlined interfaces and lack of bloat.

If it showed that people didn't like having options, Firefox wouldn't have very many extensions.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[FooBarWidget]

Have you tried explaining it to a user who has never used a computer before? He most likely doesn't even know what a toolbar is.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[Curtman]

Have you tried explaining it to a user who has never used a computer before?

Are you being serious? I don't even think I've met anyone who has never used a computer before, let alone try to explain why buttons are good things.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[MoogMan]

I must say, after using the Spatial view, I'm a bit undecided. I dont like it, although I think going back to the Explorer-style view would not be a huge step forward either.

I dont think the Spatial view "works" properly; Viewing the filesystem folders as seperate entities is fundamentally flawed, since a filesystem itself isnt really modelled on anything tangible. Then again the Explorer-style is just a bit more hassle than should be. Its a fine line really, I guess...

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[wowbagger]

Hear Hear - I hate not being able to type the damn path where I know the file is.

This especially bites when using automounted directories, as the directory I want to go to WON'T EXIST until I try to go to it - thus there IS no entry to click on in the new Gnome File Selector.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[Pxtl]

Idunno, I like the toolbarless look, but that's just because I think its nice looking and I'm one of those people who never ever touches the toolbar. I find that the Gnome people in general don't like toolbars and tend to prefer right-click-menus. This is good for simple apps (like the file browser) but a poor decision for more complicated apps.

Still, I agree that the "new window for each folder" thing is a bad idea. Why not follow FireFox's success and go with a rocker/radial approach? Middle-click = open in new window, rclick + scrollup = up one level, stuff like that? Just have the context-menu list the rocker gestures and hotkeys alongside the command names.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[grumbel]

Complain a lot, write bugreports, cross your fingers and wait a release or two and they might add back a useable textinput/typeahead support. In the past Gnome developers have frustrated me quite a lot, especially in the switch from Gnome1.4 to Gnome2.0 where a lot of usefull features have gone missing, however most of the needed features have found there way back again sooner or later. So I have good hopes that they will fix the filedialog too in the future, just give it a bit time. Gnome developers tend to overshoot their goal of simplicity, it just takes some time to find the right balance between 'crowded', 'simply good' and 'too simple'.

### I can't understand why they won't even offer the old one as an option, except that it would mean admitting that they might be wrong.

They follow more or less the principal of doing it right, instead of flooding the screen with options. And as basically everybody will agree the old dialog was just plain awfull (beside the tab-completion, which was really good), so I think they prefered to dump it completly to have it finally dead, instead of dragging it around for another few releases. Until they get proper typeahead implemented, it will be of course a bit painfull, since 'Ctrl-L' is really a rather ugly hack, however it gets the job done and the dialog is already much more pleasent to use with the mouse, so the damage isn't that big and time will most likly fix the rest.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[ajs]

I find that the Gnome people in general don't like toolbars and tend to prefer right-click-menus. This is good for simple apps (like the file browser) but a poor decision for more complicated apps.

I can see where you're coming from, but in general I think that even the most complex apps benefit from simplicity and well groomed context functionality (context menus being one example).

The problem is that there are very few examples of well-groomed context menus. For examples of how far astray this can go, look at The Gimp... *shudder* Don't get me wrong, I love The Gimp, but I love it for its power, not for ease of use (I don't want to think about how much of my life has been spent searching for a particular filter or tool in those "context" menus).

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[grumbel]

### I'll take this oppertunity to complain about GNOME's current love affair with spatial browsing, in the hope that it will get noticed.

In Gnome2.8.1 there is a easy to reach option to switch back to the normal non-spatial browsing behaviour, so no more gconf searching for the right option. About making it default, its of course questionable, however spatial has its benefits when your directory structures are flat, which it most likly will be for most new users, rest of the users shouldn't have much throuble to switch back to the old behaviour now.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[flynn_nrg]

This especially bites when using automounted directories, as the directory I want to go to WON'T EXIST until I try to go to it - thus there IS no entry to click on in the new Gnome File Selector.

Just press Ctrl-L and type the location. Quite easy, isn't it?

As a matter of fact, GTK+ offers the two file browser widgets. It's up to the developer to choose which one she'll use in her app. I've moved all my software to the new one, and everyone I've asked thinks it's an improvement over the older code.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[Pxtl]

Funny, The GIMP was exactly the app I had in mind with my "complex apps" complaint. That, and vague memories of an old version of Dia.

Seriously, I think radial-context-menus, if done properly (read: not like the awful ones in FireFox), could be the future.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[Fancia]

The old one is depreciated and may be removed at a later date. All of the software developers I've talked to won't even offer the option at compile time to use the old one because it's officially depreciated.

As for Ctrl-L, it seems needless to add an extra step to what I could already do before. If they recognize that some people will want to type in the path, why in Goddess' name should they impose an extra keyboard press? Surely they could include the rest of the improved interface as it is, but not require the user to jump through hoops just to use a feature that was there before.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[RdsArts]

Not to be crass, but they don't matter.

The vast majority of people know of and have used a computer before. They have baggage from a previous use experience.

If the sole justification of a UI construct is "if you never used anything else before, it's easy," then it has failed. It has to be easy to new, intermediate, and advanced users. More so when it's something as central as the "thing that pops up when I click the icons on the desktop."

(full disclaimer, I actually like and think Spartial Nautilus is a good thing, but that it's not taken to the full extent it should be. For example, the spartial model breaks the minute a user opens a app, as the open/save dialogs do not know of or respect the spartial nature of the system, thus breaking any "learning" the spartial nautilus views may have brought about)

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[wowbagger]

And where, in the dialog, does it tell me about that?

For all the Gnome guys seem to love these human interface guidelines, they seem to forget the single biggest item when making a GUI:

Any item the user is to be able to manipulate should be represented on the UI

Every time they fail to follow that, and every time they get called on it, they come up with some "Well, just press CTRL-ALT-META-LSHIFT-Q to enable that".

So a user is to pour over the documentation, reading every bit of it to find all these key combinations that are NOT indicated on the UI itself.

And this, somehow, is going to make it easier for the non-31337 user to use...

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[m50d]

The biggest problem with spatial nautilus, however, is not giving users a preference for it. The gnome devs must have known some people would hate it. And yet they not only made it the default but made it impossible to switch back (ok, you can switch with a registry edit, but they made it as difficult as they could). To me that says there is something very wrong with the way their process works.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[m50d]

OK, that's good, but it shouldn't have happened at all. What kind of quality control do they have that they released a stable version with a feature that annoys the hell out of a significant proportion of users AND NO WAY TO TURN IT OFF?

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[wowbagger]

Just press Ctrl-L and type the location. Quite easy, isn't it?

No, because that requires me to know the WHOLE PATH AND FILENAME.

I cannot say "Look, I know it is in /foo/var/baz, but I do not know the name. Give me a damn file selector, then let ME type in /foo/var/baz, and then SHOW ME WHAT IS IN THAT DIRECTORY."

Again, your post is a great example of what is WRONG with the current GNOME developer's mindset - "Gosh I am so smart that I know how you want to use your computer, and I don't even NEED to ask you your opinion, because we all know it's wrong anyway."

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[redtux1]

Simple because loads more LOVE it - me included

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[flynn_nrg]

Hey, I do agree with you on that. Actually I also agree with the documentation point. I was recently implementing drag and drop on one of my programs and found the lack of documentation a bit frustrating, ended up looking at how other programs did it (gedit, some GTK+ examples, etc). The good news is that you can contribute to the project and make a difference :)

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[grumbel]

### Nautilus on the whole is VERY confusing to the users that I have introduced to it.

The throuble really is that spatial only works on very flat directory trees, there however it works great. I for one loved the spatial nature of Workbench back then on the Amiga, it made perfect sense there since directories where always pretty flat, after all I didn't had a HD, just a single floppy drive and directories where basically never deeper then two levels.

Today on a PC however its much more throublesome, the whole world in form of the internet is just a few clicks away and even my local PC has directory structures with many many levels. Even getting to the top-level directory of a smb-share takes around four levels and my screen is then already full of windows and thats only the start, the file I want might be a whole bunch of levels deeper. Spatial doesn't work in such situations and if it does only with the Ctrl-Click trick that auto-closes the current window, which I personally find hell of a lot confusing since the new window pops up completly at a random position. Yes, I know the position is the same as last one but on deep directories there is no way I can remember all the position, so it looks and feels completly random.

In the end I would say that spatial is really not the one-true-way how browsing will work in the future, but neither is the explorer-style all that perfect. My current favorite is really the Rox-style of handling things, at default I get everything in one window, but if I middle click I basically get a spatial window and the best of all I can press '/' and then get a text-input field which lets me tab-completed browse the file structure, which happens to be a damn lot faster then mousing around in some areas. Nautilus Ctrl-L is similar, but due to the spatial 'mess', it feels rather different.

BTW. The NortonCommander 'double' view is something I consider relativly useless, but thats a different story...

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[natrius]

File -> Open Location (Ctrl+L)

Spatial Nautilus isn't perfect, but it's improved in 2.8. It's not easy to adjust to it after years of hierarchical file browsing, but after using it for a few months, trying the old way feels just as uncomfortable as the original transition. If you don't want to try it, go ahead and turn it off. Just don't get mad about what they choose for the defaults if you refuse to even look at the merits of the decision.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[cfalcon]

Heheh. Yea, I started complaining with the whole "Press Control-L to enter a location".

Right-O, that's obvious.

Now, I use it all the time. I didn't like the spatial thing, but I wanted to see whether they were right all along.

I'm still out on the issue, but it hasn't been a real winner for me so far :(

One question, and maybe everyone knows but me: in Windows at least (and maybe it originated on Mac) if I have a list of files, I can Ctrl-Click them and highlight many. Or, I can click on one and shift click on another and highlight all the intervening ones. Or, some combination of the two. The shift-click mechanic doesn't seem to be present in Nautilus. Is this deliberate? Is there some easier way to highlight all files that start with "Kl" or all jpgs, or all files created last week, that I'm not aware of?

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[Lussarn]

Have you even used the fileselector? After You hit Ctrl+L it has tab completion and even shows you the directory tree to pick a dir/file from (with your mouse if you wish). It's pretty much like bash only better.

I know they improve it with every version of GTK+ so maybe you haven't used the latest one?

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[Curtman]

The point is, open a Nautilus (classic) window. Now in the View menu, deselect "Side Pane", and "Location Bar" then tear off the toolbar. With all that functionality removed you've got a spacial Nautilus.

This was forced on us as if it were some fantastic innovation. Its not, at the very least put those items in the View menu of the spacial Nautilus so we can turn that stuff back on, there's nothing wrong with it and without them it makes it harder to navigate. Simpler isn't always better.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[Medieval_Gnome]

Admittedly a problem in Gnome 2.6, but in 2.8 I'm looking at the file management preferences dialog, "behaviour" tab, and seeing an (unchecked) option that says "Always open in browser windows"

And while the majority of people seem to not want this as an option, I quite like it, especially after learning a few tricks.

Tricks, in case anyone wants:
Double middle-click on a folder to open that one and close the current folder
Control+Shift+W to close all parent folders
Control+Q to exit out of all nautilus windows

HTH

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[Medieval_Gnome]

No, because that requires me to know the WHOLE PATH AND FILENAME.

While I can see how that impression could be made, it is more flexible than that, allowing you to type in a directory, open it, and THEN be presented with the file chooser window in that directory. Still not ideal, but not as bad as you made it sound.

"Gosh I am so smart that I know how you want to use your computer, and I don't even NEED to ask you your opinion, because we all know it's wrong anyway."

Unfortunately I have to agree with you somewhat on this point. I find their attitude less problematic than the niggling little bugs I run across in the other DEs. To each their own, I guess.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[at_slashdot]

"Gnome people in general don't like toolbars"

So why the heck they put 2 toolbars on the screen one on top and one on buttom. Why developers assume that anybody has a 19 inch monitor?

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[grumbel]

Choice might be good sometime, but often its not. The "Choice is Good" is half of the time really just an excuse for bad userinterfaces, bad defaults or otherwise flawed software. Gnome tries to offer choice only where it makes sense and is necessary, where it does not they either not provide an option at all or move it into gconf.

### If users are feeling overwhelmed by options, it's generally a sign that the choices have been poorly presented, not that there are too many of them.

Depends on the options, when they do something usefull that a large number of people will use, then it should of course be there. If it however is something that basically none will be using and the only thing you can do with the option is to break things, it should better be removed. Same applies to options where the computer can automatically determinate the correct value, ie. no need to set you cdrom device in each and every application, since the OS provides enough info to find out where it is.

That said, Gnome overdid it a bit with the "remove options" in the past, since they either ended up moving common options into gconf or only provided flawed defaults, its after all a act of balance and only a little try and error will show if some option is really needed and if it is if there isn't another way to provide a 'right' default.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[10Ghz]

DISCLAIMER: I'm a KDE-user, but it is not my intention to bash Gnome (and, IMO, I'm not). I'm merely stating my observations on this matter.

The whole affair with spatial Nautilus is quite interesting. And I do not mean simply the way how it affects the users, but what it tells about the developement-policy. I mean, Gnome radically changed the way the user interacts with his files. And they did that in a minor (2.x ==> 2.y) release. And it seems that many users hate the change.

OTOH, in KDE they faced something similar (but not as dramatic): The change of the default style. Users disliked Keramik (the default), and wanted Plastik to be the default. Now, that change would not be as dramatic as moving from browsing to spatial would be, it woukd just change the appearance of the UI somewhat. KDE-developers did not want to make that change, espesially in a minor release (3.x ==> 3.y). It was thought that the change would be too big, and it would also mean redoing all the "official" screenshots and documentation (so that pictures in docs show the new style). Only after numerous requests to change the style and after Plastik was tweaked and optimized did they decide to make the change (it's the default in upcoming 3.4).

What's also interesting is that AFAIK people were not begging the Gnome-developers to give them spatial filemanagement, but they did it anyway. OTOH, users were begging KDE-developers to change from Keramik to Plastik, and they did it only after long discussions about the matter.

It seems to me that Gnome-folks are more willing to make big and disruptive ("disruptive" is not automatially a bad thing, FYI) changes to the desktop, whereas KDE-folks tend to be more conservative and careful. Which of those ways is better, is up to every indivudal user.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[Knuckles]

"Spatial browsing"? There is no such thing: the spatial and the browsing mode are the opposites that are discussed all the time.

Who likes it? I'm a Linux user since 1996, and I like spatial

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[cfalcon]

Hey, awesome!

Yea, it's probably not the best way that can be accomplished. But, at least they have it! I've never used nor heard of a feature like that before, so seeing it implemented in a way that I *think* could be done better doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Thanks a lot. Thanks to you and the other commentor, my file managing just got a lot easier.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[FooBarWidget]

So by your reasoning, Linux GUIs should just emulate Windows. Yet when GNOME or KDE does that, people massively whine about looking too much like Windows.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[RdsArts]

NO! Far from it.

Windows is very, very broken. There is no consistancy between apps. They're designed in large part by people who are, and I have no way to prove this other than the apps, completely insane or sadistic. I'm personally holding to the belief it is a mix of the two.

But, we have to understand and accept that the user will have some learned traits from using it. For example, if we put them in front of Enlightenment, the users will... Well.. Have you ever seen the movie "Scanners?"

But, if Enlightenment is the first thing someone ever uses, hey, it could be really easy to use. We don't know. But, we'll never find out; most people won't have that luxury.

So what I'm saying is, if the only, sole, lone reason you can say "this UI is the best because it is easier if someone has never used anything else ever, they will find it easy to use," and that is the only case in which it is easier to use, then you are ignoring that most people will not be in that situation, and need to reevaluate the design in the light that people will come into it with some preconcieved notions of how it should work. This doesn't mean you have to emulate them, just that you have to be congnisant of them and try and tool it so that in the end it is easier for both to use. Because most users aren't new users. They're intermediate users.

To give a example, let's take Nautilus: Ctrl-Q closes all windows. In Nautilus. In Gedit it closes the current window, while ctrl-w closes the current view. In EOG ctrl-w and ctrl-q do the same thing, close the current view; you can't close all of them with one keyboard command. In Epiphany, ctrl-q does nothing and ctrl-w closes views and the window, depending on if there are any other tabs in the current view. In...

How is that easier for a new user? Or a novice or advanced? Why bother with having common key binds if they aren't consistant across apps?

Spartial Nautilus is the only non-dialog view window in GNOME without a toolbar to my knowledge. How is this easier to use? How is this consistant? How does a user learn to expect the most commonly used items to have large icons on the top, then in only one window type have nothing?

This isn't even me going into the problems of having that little path dropdown on the lower left hand side of the window. It's small, it's in the hardest-to-reach corner of a window, and isn't even consistant with the way the path is shown in the file dialogs. And these are just things I see when I take a quick look at it.

So perhaps the no-toolbar spartial Nautilus view is, in a vacuum, easier to use. But it's ignorant of the entire system around it, and of the users skill set. If it can be argued to be better, than so be it, but if the sole justification for it is "it's easier if someone's never used anything else," then can we really say that this is the best path to take? IMHO, no.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[m50d]

That's an argument for making it the default. But to my mind that doesn't justify making it impossible to turn off.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please

[m50d]

That's new in 2.8.1. So the issue is gone, yes. But I can't believe they released a version with such a big problem.

Executive Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

In China, gnome is banned.
In Netcraft, KDE is dying. (Confirmed).
In Korea, only old people elect gnomes.
In Japan, talking robot gnomes are elected.
In Soviet Russia, gnome elects YOU!

Any questions?

Re:Executive Summary

[freqres]

Who does all our base belong to now?

Re:Executive Summary

[DAldredge]

WWOD?

What Would OOG Do?

chuckle

[viva_fourier]

> 5. What unique aspect will you bring to the job?

I think it is safe to say I am closer to legally blind than anyone on
the board, or running for it. That's unique, right? :) -- Luis Villa

My question for Slashdot customer service: Can I find this mildly funny, or does that make me some sort of Gnome Foundation fanboy...

Re:chuckle

[ChipMonk]

Nobody's going to stop you from laughing. After all, he did. And it wouldn't make you a fanboy.

However, you would be a fanboy if GWB ran for the Gnome Foundation Board, and won, and you were still pleased with the results.

Voting irregularities

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear there were some GNOME precincts that had more KDE votes than the total number of registered voters. Something smells fishy.

Re:Voting irregularities

[learn fast]

It wouldn't surprise me at all if KDE and GNOME were to one day have evolved into warring political parties.

Look at the eerie similarities:

# inexplicable, irrational, vitriolic loathing of each other
# the end user can't really tell any difference between them

Yup, sounds like two dominant political parties to me. All we need now is a winner-takes-all voting system and game theory ensures they'll be entrenched forever.

Re:Voting irregularities

[cduffy]

inexplicable, irrational, vitriolic loathing of each other

You do realize that the actual project participants mostly get along just fine, and it's mostly just the users who do the flamewar thing?

Re:Voting irregularities

[triskaidekaphile]

You do realize you are reinforcing the analogy, don't you?

Re:Voting irregularities

[midav]

Do they call us lusers too?

Re:Voting irregularities

[Anonymous Coward]

the end user can't really tell any difference between them

Are you kidding?

It's possible to distinguish Gnome and KDE quite easily by looking at the tips that appear when you first start them up.

KDE: "Did you know? Right-click on any file and select CERVISIA to frobnicate the CVS flibdijibble flooble blargh foo."

Gnome: "Did you know? Eating solid food is almost as easy as sucking Mommy's milk!"

Re:Voting irregularities

[cduffy]

Heh -- quite so.

Elections?

[HexaByte]

They're having elections? Why not _selections_?

The person who contributes the most stable code get to be CTO, the one who got the most companies to pony up $$$ is CFO, and the one who can listen to the most complaints without going crazy becomes CEO!

Just my vote!

Re:Elections?

[WombatControl]

And the one who doesn't contribute anything, whines the most, and is generally the most clueless can be selected as chief legal council!

Yes, I have a thing against lawyers...

Re:Elections?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a lawyer, and I want to say this: keep your thing away from me! Pervert.

Re:Elections?

[Rude Turnip]

Because it's more efficient to have 1 person elected to be in charge than run a competition and have everyone spread themselves out (ie slicing time betweem coding and fundraising) vying for a position.

Besides, as long as everyone's votes are made in a thoughtful manner, then, theoretically, the talents of the individuals who are best at the above tasks will be elected to the positions on their merits.

Re:Elections?

[Skeezix]

That's a great idea: take our best hacker and put him in a management role where he has less time to hack.

Approval voting with multiple winners

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears that the election system used is approval voting, but with multiple winners. This does not result in proportional representation, but instead elects almost only "centrist" candidates. This may or may not have been the intent.

Sun Exclusion -- Java vs .Net?

[Karma Sucks]

It's very interesting that Sun has been excluded from the board since as far as I know the board sets the technical direction for GNOME.

Does this maybe mean that .NET/Mono has won the battle of GNOME? Interesting times.

Re:Sun Exclusion -- Java vs .Net?

[uwog]

The one thing the board does NOT, is setting the technical direction for GNOME.

Re:Sun Exclusion -- Java vs .Net?

[KeyserDK]

NO, SUN employes is not excluded.
NO, the board does NOT set the technical direction for GNOME.

Troll...?

Re:Sun Exclusion -- Java vs .Net?

[Eccles]

Yes, but Gnomes usually avoid the Sun.

Troll...?

Oh heck yes. trolls definitely avoid the Sun. In Tolkien's stories, the sun would turn trolls (except Olog-hai) into stone.

Re:Sun Exclusion -- Java vs .Net?

[Curtman]

The one thing the board does NOT, is setting the technical direction for GNOME.

Thats a shame, because someone definitely should. I use Gnome because I prefer it to KDE, but they aren't making it easy to justify that decision these days. GTK+ is a great toolkit, but Gnome has way too much politics.

Fork! Fork! Fork!

Re:Sun Exclusion -- Java vs .Net?

[tiptone]

[genie voice]
your wish is my command...
[/genie voice]

http://www.goneme.org/

which seems to be down at the moment?

Re:Sun Exclusion -- Java vs .Net?

[Karma Sucks]

So, by simply lying, you get to call me a troll and be modded up?

- Has Sun been included or excluded from the board of directors? Sun is not there, there were not enough votes for any Sun member to win.

- http://foundation.gnome.org/about/charter/ used to say "GNOME Foundation will oversee the technical direction of GNOME." now http://foundation.gnome.org/elections/overview.htm l says:

Partial List of Tasks of the Board of Directors

The Board of Directors must perform a broad set of both technical and non-technical tasks including:

- Help set overall direction for GNOME.
- Arbitrate technical disputes between maintainers. ...

Google for more of the same.

Re:Sun Exclusion -- Java vs .Net?

[Karma Sucks]

Oh, YEAH? Did you read:

http://foundation.gnome.org/elections/overview.h tm l

Re:Sun Exclusion -- Java vs .Net?

[TeraCo]

"it's more logical to have the cancel button on the right"

Why?

Re:Sun Exclusion -- Java vs .Net?

[m50d]

Do it in Qt instead. Really, python + qt is a joy to program in. Qt is actually easier to use in python than c++, you don't need to worry about declaring slots separately etc.

Re:slashdot is...

[tanguyr]

The real smart people don't need to prove it--they live it.

Fill in the blank:
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the _________"

thank you for playing.

The best part is we still win . . .

[grahamkracker]

With each year's election, it just keeps getting better & better . . .

All of the traffic simply brings more review, attention and organization to the GNOME Foundation & GNOME Development.

It's not a negative, it's a positive, either way they both push us forward towards our goals //kracker

sage francis - sick of waging war - 01 - radio commercial intro

Re:The best part is we still win . . .

[dash2]

WTF? This gets +5?

Looks like it was written by a robot.

"It's not a negative?" What's not a negative? Who said it was a negative? What are you smoking? //kracker?? WTF?? And who the hell is Sage Francis? Bah.

In related news...

[jd]

Ukraine offered to send observers to the GNOME elections, to ensure fairness. Meanwhile, the Eric Conspiracy has already declared victory. Bin Laden has issued a statement saying that it doesn't matter who wins, he will continue to use Emacs until American troops are withdrawn from Microsoft Windows.

Re:slashdot is...

[Dragon218]

management team

Precipitate

[pjt33]

I'm not sure why this is relevant, though.

Spatial browsing and the Mac Finder

[devnevyn]

I haven't used spatial browsing in an other environment than the original Macintosh Finder, pre-OS X. However, the Mac OS 9 Finder is an example of spatial browsing at its best. For a /very/ thourough read on the subject of spatiality, see John Siracusas excellent and by now well-known article over at Ars Technica. John Gruber over at Daring Fireball has a very good take on the subject, as well. Gruber:

In the classic Finder, there is no abstraction between the actual file system and the view of the file system presented on screen. A folder is either open or closed. If it is open, it is represented on screen in its own window. The size, position, and viewing options for an open folder's window are always remembered, and are unrelated to the size, position, and viewing options of parent, sibling, or child folders. There is a clear, cohesive paradigm at work. An open folder is a window; a window is an open folder.

Re:Spatial browsing and the Mac Finder

[Jameth]

In the classic Finder, there is no abstraction between the actual file system and the view of the file system presented on screen. A folder is either open or closed. If it is open, it is represented on screen in its own window. The size, position, and viewing options for an open folder's window are always remembered, and are unrelated to the size, position, and viewing options of parent, sibling, or child folders. There is a clear, cohesive paradigm at work. An open folder is a window; a window is an open folder.

What nonsense. No abstraction between the file system and the view of the file system because folders are displayed as opened or closed? Since when does the file system open or close folders? You ask the filesystem what's in a folder and it tells you. That's all.

And the 'cohesive paradigm'? Oh, so a browser which follows a 100% tree structure, where going up goes up a level, opening a folder changes the view, and so on is not cohesive or clear? Most people find it plenty clear.

And what is this, "An open folder is a window; a window is an open folder"? So, all windows are folders? Tell that to all the other programs on the system! You might say that they aren't the Finder, but the windows look just about identical, so no one cares. It's the same with any other browser, anyway: A window of a folder is an opened folder.

That was one of the most singularly bad arguments for spatial browsing that has ever been presented. Maybe the rest of there comments are of at least some value, but what you quoted has quite inspired me to assume they are incompetent and not waste my time reading them.

Re:Spatial browsing and the Mac Finder

[devnevyn]

It's not nonsense.

You ask the filesystem what's in a folder and it tells you

Yes, that's what happens, on an arcitectual level, but the average user isn't on that level. The thing about spatial browsing is that a single folder goes together with a single window. [The folder] and [its window with its contents and metadata] is one and the same thing. This is very logical to the user -- when he opens a physical folder, he can see the documents within the folder. He cannot open two folders and find the same documents. If the user arranges the papers in folder in a certain order, the next time he opens the folder he'll find the papers in the exact same order. A browser breaks this connection: suddenly, two windows can show the same content. Also, going "up a level", which suddenly changes the content of the window, is far from as visually clear as opening a folder and seeing its content 'come out of it' in the form of a new window.

And what is this, "An open folder is a window; a window is an open folder"? So, all windows are folders? Tell that to all the other programs on the system! You might say that they aren't the Finder, but the windows look just about identical, so no one cares. It's the same with any other browser, anyway: A window of a folder is an opened folder.

Of course not, he's only saying that a folder and its window goes together with a one-to-one relationship. I don't see what you're getting at. Outside the 'file manager', it's rare that a window represents a folder.

That was one of the most singularly bad arguments for spatial browsing that has ever been presented. Maybe the rest of there comments are of at least some value, but what you quoted has quite inspired me to assume they are incompetent and not waste my time reading them.

And yet it's the argument propulsed by many great interface engineers, including Bruce Tognazzini who pretty much formed the old Mac user interface. But great! Good for you! For ignorance is truly bliss. However, if you change your mind and feel curious enough to figure this 'spatial' thing out, I do recommend reading Siracusa's article.

Re:Spatial browsing and the Mac Finder

[Jameth]

You ask the filesystem what's in a folder and it tells you

Yes, that's what happens, on an arcitectual level, but the average user isn't on that level.

So, let's go back to the statement we are arguing about:

In the classic Finder, there is no abstraction between the actual file system and the view of the file system presented on screen.

Let me get this straight: The Finder shows the user something differently from what happens at the file-system level, so it's not an abstraction of the file system? I think you might have a misunderstanding of what an abstraction is, or you just don't care that the quote was wrong in all its fundamentals.

he's only saying that a folder and its window goes together with a one-to-one relationship.

Yes. When do they not? In Explorer, when do folders open not have a one-to-one relationship? I open a folder, it has a window (1-1). I navigate into a lower folder, and it stays at one window with one folder (1-1). I close the window (0-0). Seemed to match up.

What he is talking about is that each folder has its own unique window, even when closed. What he fails to do is present that this has any benefit. What he claimed as a benefit was a one-to-one mapping, which occurs in all other systems as well. If this quote which you pointed out specifically can't successfully make any arguments, I can only assume the rest of the piece is similarly bad.

And yet it's the argument propulsed by many great interface engineers, including Bruce Tognazzini who pretty much formed the old Mac user interface.

I'll just assume you meant proposed, then also assume that you meant that Bruce Tognazzini is a strong backer of the spatial navigator interface, not the precise quote you tossed down.

Now, maybe you should actually read what I said. I didn't say the spatial navigator was bad. I said that quote was nonsense. I said the argument was "one of the most singularly bad arguments for spatial browsing that has ever been presented". There are many good arguments. I've even made some of them before. That argument was not one of the good arguments.

Oh, and for your information, I don't mind spatial browsing. I prefer non-spatial for my personal usage for a lot of reasons that I can easily explain if you want me to, but I won't in this post as it would waste space.

Re:No More [Preconceptions] Please

[Curtman]

I've known people who've NEVER used a computer. And have VCR's that still flash 12:00.

Did you ever ask them if they'd rather not have buttons on their VCR at all?

Re:slashdot is...

[Pxtl]

precipitate

Re:No More [Preconceptions] Please

[DougWebb]

It does apply to everyone, because everyone sees it whenever they use a computer and try to access the filesystem.

Spatial Browsing, if implemented everywhere (including MS Windows and OSX), could become the new "preconception baggage", but it wouldn't be any better, because it's not really 'spatial'.

As currently implemented, Spatial Browsing replaces representing your filesystem as a hierarchical tree with representing your filesystem as a flood of windows which appear to be disconnected, but which actually have a vague and very poorly represented hierarchical relationship.

True spatial browsing, ala Raskin's Humane Interface, would be a real improvement. Instead of the hierarchy, documents are scattered around in groups, and you can zoom in on a group to discover that there are smaller groups within the larger group. This would make perfect sense to most people, who have stuff piled all over their physical desks using pretty much the same organizational structure.

GNOME community almost as big as Java?

[Wesley Felter]

I don't know if we can really learn anything from this, but it's interesting to compare the GNOME election to the recent Java Community Process election:

GNOME: 324 registered voters, 183 votes cast, dominated by Red Hat and Novell. Sun almost got a seat.
JCP: 755 registered voters, 221 votes cast, Google, JBoss, and Intel edge out Novell. Sun has a permanent seat and Red Hat didn't run, despite their interest in Java.

Gnome 2.10??

[bach37]

Luis Villa: [snip] ...we need to send out gnoppix/ubuntu livecds to media with late 2.9 releases and a nice little 'here is what is so cool about gnome' pamphlets. If we can do that for 2.10 we'll go a long way towards recapturing some of the buzz we had.

Doesn't he mean Gnome 3.0? Or 2.9.2 or something?
Someone help me out on how version numbers go.

Re:Gnome 2.10??

[Zemplar]

He said "2.10" not 2.1.0

Re:Gnome 2.10??

[Plug]

The major version isn't incremented until the binary API is broken. So, going up in two, you can have 2.0, 2.2, 2.4, 2.6, 2.8, 2.10, 2.12 etc - don't think in terms of decimal numbers, just treat the second number as an integer on its own.

You forgot Roving Garden Gnomes.

[infonography]

That and pink Flamingos.

Re:slashdot is...

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

If you're not part of the solution, you're the precipitate.

Re:slashdot is...

[ip_fired]

How true! Funny and true :)

Why is it that the majority of managers have no clue how to solve the problems they are supposed to be working on. Why is it that a guy with a Marketing Degree is in charge of a team of programmers.

I wonder if it is just me finding lousy companies with no futures to work at, or if this is common.

Re:slashdot is...

[antoy]

I almost had milk coming out of my nose.

Seriously, I was drinking milk.

Re:No More [Preconceptions] Please

[elgaard]

Try Xcruiser:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/xcruiser/

Great fun but not very useful for browsing.

Re:No More Spatial Browsing Please-Shift-Click.

[cfalcon]

Well, I tried it, and it didn't work.

I was about to ask what exactly you were smoking, and then I decided to experiment: I didn't pick the first couple (with control) and then use control-shift to pick the remainders, I just used shift.

That worked.

It's still not perfect (or I'm missing more details, likely at this point): if I want to highlight two different lines of things, I don't have *that* option (because holding control makes the "select an additional dude" logic fire, whereas I would like *both* that and the "string of guys" to follow).

But that's a not the same level of problem at all.

Thanks a lot!

Re:slashdot is...

[tanguyr]

I wasn't talking about Mr. McDonald - I was talking about you specifically. Your original observation about the quality of the debate on slashdot is actually right on target: the signal to noise ratio is terrible, and only the most immature "slashbot" would ever argue otherwise.

My observation, on the other hand, is that outbursts such as yours are most certainly part of the noise. If you don't like it here, leave. If you decide to stay, why not demonstrate your maturity and intelligence by trying to promote some intelligent material to the signal side of the equation?

mono?

[namekuseijin]

With Novell guys all the rage through the list, i wonder if mono will finally get into Linux desktops?

As you may well know, it's an open-source implementation of publicly available and ECMA-standardized Microsoft's .Net API + plus a few more.