[HN Gopher] Everyone seems to forget why GNOME and GNOME 3 and U... ___________________________________________________________________ Everyone seems to forget why GNOME and GNOME 3 and Unity happened Author : JetSpiegel Score : 62 points Date : 2022-07-27 21:43 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (liam-on-linux.dreamwidth.org) (TXT) w3m dump (liam-on-linux.dreamwidth.org) | xiaomai wrote: | I vaguely remember the Microsoft/SuSe deal but never linked that | to GNOME3. I really love gnome-shell, but one thing I always have | to tweak is putting the minimize/maximize buttons back in the | toolbar (couldn't ever figure out why they would get rid of | those... now i know?). | kmeisthax wrote: | I assumed that it either had something to do with filesystem | patents[0] or the vague patent claims they made on early | Android vendors. UI design didn't even cross my mind - I didn't | even know those were _patentable_ , and Apple's foray into | "look and feel" lawsuits was something Microsoft adamantly | fought _against_. Hell, if I 've heard correctly[1], Microsoft | was the reason why those early UI design flourishes like | faux-3D highlights made their way into CDE and Motif. | | Given that Miguel de Icaza already is calling BS on this I'm | starting to doubt the veracity of any of this. | | [0] Microsoft still claims ownership over ExFAT, for example | | [1] It was vaguely mentioned somewhere in NCommander's very, | _very_ long "Installing every version of IBM OS/2" stream | bawolff wrote: | If gnome's menu is a "start menu", then surely macOS classic's | apple menu also counts as a start menu ? | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_Macintosh_Desktop.p... | TazeTSchnitzel wrote: | The bar at the left of the desktop on Unity is very much like the | Windows 7 taskbar, which can optionally be placed at the left. | This doesn't seem credible to me. | linguae wrote: | This is news to me. I remember that the Linux desktop seemed to | be on the ascendancy back in 2006. GNOME 2 and KDE 3 were very | nice desktops; while they weren't Mac OS X Tiger (which still | holds up as an amazing desktop), they were solid contenders to | Windows XP. But then came GNOME 3 and KDE 4, which were major | fumbles that set back the Linux desktop for years. | | If it's true that GNOME's radical direction beginning with | version 3 is the result of threats from Microsoft to change its | desktop to avoid influences from Windows, then that definitely | changes my assessment of the era, and my distaste for Microsoft's | anti-competitive behavior only deepens (this is the same | Microsoft that complained about Apple's look-and-feel lawsuits). | cube00 wrote: | At the time I remember the discussions seemed to be "this how | the GNOME team have decided things will be, it's better, deal | with it" | | There was no discussion I saw that they doing all this under | the threat of legal action, although maybe they didn't want to | paint an even larger target on their backs by naming Microsoft | or be seen trying to change things just enough to avoid the | patents. | toyg wrote: | Plenty of stuff in the Linux world was done naming Microsoft | in adversarial terms - that was definitely not the case on | the desktop. All three main groups (GNOME, KDE, and Unity) | always, _always_ stated they were making bold design choices | for practical reasons related to UX. To claim otherwise, | today, seems very disingenuous. | int_19h wrote: | GNOME already changed direction rather radically between v1 and | v2. I specifically remember many people complaining about all | the simplifications and removal of various configurable | options, and blaming GNOME for drinking too much Apple kool- | aid. | | For example, it was GNOME 2 that removed the address (path) | textbox in the file picker by default: | https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=609128 | dijit wrote: | This is my impression to, as a person deep into the Linux | desktop ecosystem from back then. | | I even managed to give gnome2 to my mum at one point and she | remarked how nice everything was and easy to find. I had more | difficulty than she did since I was much more into computers | and had learned all the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of | Windows. | | Then gnome3 came and was a huge regression in terms of | flexibility, ease of use, aesthetics and performance. | | Plasma was the same, though, subjectively it looked better and | was a lot less antagonising than gnomes radical redesign, it | was still really heavy and buggy compared to kde3 (or whatever | the predecessor was, I think 3). | | Plasma/KDE was also very windows-like, so I don't buy the | argument that Microsoft was the cause, it was mostly gnome devs | thinking that they could get a radical touch-first redesign in | before anyone else. | | This is a very long way of saying: the parent is correct in my | opinion. | toyg wrote: | I think that MS here is being used as a convenient scapegoat. | This worry was never expressed at the time in significant terms. | The FAT and SMB patents were much more of a worry than anything | related to the desktop interface - only outright clones were | being pursued. | | At the time, KDE, GNOME and Ubuntu developers alike, were simply | drunk on popularity. Linux usage was in ascendancy, money was | being thrown around, and the FOSS world was starting to attract | young designers who saw it as a cheap way to build professional | credibility. And then the iPhone happened and the whole UX world | just went apeshit. The core teams really thought they had a shot | at redesigning how people interact with computers, "like Apple | did with phones". Interaction targets moved from keyboard+mouse | to touch screens, because "convergence" and the fact that the | mobile sector was suddenly awash with cash. | | It's sad that people try to justify their missteps in this way. | Microsoft was (and is) a terrible company and a constant threat | to the FOSS ecosystem, but defining some of the biggest design | choices of the Linux desktop only in antagonistic or reflective | terms does a real disservice to those projects and the people who | worked in them. | | If experience is the name we give our errors, refusing to accept | errors were made means stating you've learnt nothing. | marcodiego wrote: | TLDR: | | > SUSE signed a patent-sharing deal: | https://www.theregister.com/2006/11/03/microsoft_novell_suse... | | > Note: SUSE is the biggest German Linux company. (Source: I | worked for them until last year.) KDE is a German project. SUSE | developers did a lot of the work on KDE. | | > So, when SUSE signed up, KDE was safe. | | > Red Hat and Ubuntu refused to sign. | | > So, both needed _non_ Windows like desktops, ASAP, without a | Start menu, without a taskbar, without a window menu at top left | and minimize /maximize/close at top right, and so on. | | I remember Unity was born because GNOME (Red Hat) wouldn't accept | Canonical changes. I remember GNOME 3 was born like a long term | project that could adapt better for the future (nascent adaptive | UI's) just like KDE4. It was known to be slow in its first | iterations to get better over time. | | Of course, if the described reasons really make sense, it is not | something that would be discussed in the open, but is not what I | felt at the time. I even vaguely remember the "genie" effect in | Compiz needed two curves when minimizing a window to be | "different enough" from apple, but that was all. I also remember | you couldn't play a DVD or an MP3 out of the box because of DRM | and patents. Everything else... never had the vision the author | described. | | Disclaimer: around 2010-2013 I was a sporadic contributor to | Compiz and GNOME. | Gualdrapo wrote: | I still think the Applications/Places/System triple menu was | absolutely superb in terms of usability. You had three clear and | coherent categories where all the GUI software in your system was | placed, which made all that stuff easily scanneable by anyone | even if they have never used it before. It shouldn't have been | ditched, if you ask me. That clever way to separate and | categorize that stuff was and is superior to any 'start' menu | Windows (and any other desktop environment) has ever had. | smm11 wrote: | Nextstep 1.0, 1989, with a dock. | encryptluks2 wrote: | I'm pretty happy with i3/sway and can't believe how much | Microsoft spent on case studies when tiling window managers do | appear more productive | gjsman-1000 wrote: | This is one of the biggest problems to Linux on the desktop that | hasn't been addressed with all the work. If it gets large enough, | Patents. | | Design patents by Microsoft, Design patents by Apple, Design | patents by Google, Design patents by third parties, software | patents on algorithms, and countless codec patents that Linux | users violate every time they download an H.264, H.265, or AAC, | or AptX encoder or decoder, and DMCA laws they violate every time | they play a DVD. To this day, Fluendo sells $20-$30 Gstreamer | Codec Packs that are legally licensed in the US for businesses | who notice and care. However, so few care at this point Fluendo | discontinued the legal DVD player, leaving basically no legal | equivalent on Linux. | | It's easy to ignore when the companies that own most of them | don't feel threatened. But if GNU/Linux was on 40% of PC | Desktops, Microsoft would be absolutely eyeing those patents, and | MPEG LA + Access Advance would be figuring out how to launch | codec lawsuits, and the DVD CCA with the MPA would be running | after anyone with a copy of VLC, Adobe might be hunting for | patents in the printing stack that could be construed as | PostScript-related, and on and on. | easytiger wrote: | The mention of solaris is interesting. The Gnome 2 based Java | Desktop was part of what would be used to sell commercial | institutions that had regulatory requirements for things like | Accessibility (e.g. banks, government) - and it did win | customers. This meant Sun put a lot of fixes into G2 upstream | that helped stability and viability. | | I used it natively on solaris 10 on a desktop for several years | with few limitations or issues. You could even use it on a SunRay | but the performance would never compete with the dolphins | | Then, at a critical time it just kind of stopped being. Sad day | indeed | rzzzt wrote: | Project Looking Glass was also a Sun/Java thing that led the | OSS 3D window effect bandwagon: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass | migueldeicaza wrote: | This is nonsense. | gwd wrote: | I appreciate that in the heat of the moment, you want to | correct the record quickly; but this adds very little to the | discussion. I look forward to your longer comment / blog post | setting the record straight. | joneholland wrote: | Lol. I came here looking for your reply. | haunter wrote: | GNOME 2 was perfect. I use the spiritual sucessor MATE wherever | it's possible. It's not perfect and arguably "boring" but there | is really something to it https://mate-desktop.org/ | | On a side note a similar project exist for KDE 3. Trinity Desktop | https://www.trinitydesktop.org/ | | And on a second mildly related side note: /r/linux had a thread | about a modern (2009) OpenSuse spin with KDE 2 a few months ago. | It was released as an april's fools joke but the ISO file totally | disappeared from the internet. Or at least the sub couldn't find | it (and the archive.org mirror is corrupted) | https://blogs.kde.org/2009/04/01/new-kde-live-cd-release-bri... | Maybe someone here have it? :) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-27 23:00 UTC)