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Gnome: Staring into the abyss

blogs.gnome.org

1–10 of 188 posts

Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss

#3

This would have worried me back when Unity was crap a year or so ago. Now Unity is actually good, it doesn't matter if Gnome dies a slow death; we'll still have multiple good alternatives that are still being enhanced.

But it applies to the foundation Unity is built upon, as well:

    GTK has 1 person working full-time on it (me). Glib
    doesn’t even have that. I think evolution is in a 
    similar situation (a complete email client).
Also, competition is always good.

Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss

#4

This would have worried me back when Unity was crap a year or so ago. Now Unity is actually good, it doesn't matter if Gnome dies a slow death; we'll still have multiple good alternatives that are still being enhanced.

Unity shares a lot of core infrastructure with Gnome. If Gnome has problems, Unity+Ubuntu will have problems as well. And Unity has the same bus factor and even less community developers or developers from other companies: if Canonical is hit by a bus (which is not entirely unlikely if it doesn't become profitable) the project is doomed.

Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss

#5
post #3

This would have worried me back when Unity was crap a year or so ago. Now Unity is actually good, it doesn't matter if Gnome dies a slow death; we'll still have multiple good alternatives that are still being enhanced.

But it applies to the foundation Unity is built upon, as well: GTK has 1 person working full-time on it (me). Glib doesn’t even have that. I think evolution is in a similar situation (a complete email client). Also, competition is always good.

I'm confident that Canonical is on top of this.

Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss

#7

This is the (dead) G+ post by Linus that he refers to: http://digitizor.com/2011/08/04/linus-torvalds-ditches-gnome...

What these articles never mention is a follow-up comment by Torvalds:

"And for all the people wasting everybodys time with "Why don't you use Unity/KDE/xfce/xyz" - I've tried them. They are even worse" https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/UkoAaLDp...

Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss

#8
post #3

This would have worried me back when Unity was crap a year or so ago. Now Unity is actually good, it doesn't matter if Gnome dies a slow death; we'll still have multiple good alternatives that are still being enhanced.

But it applies to the foundation Unity is built upon, as well: GTK has 1 person working full-time on it (me). Glib doesn’t even have that. I think evolution is in a similar situation (a complete email client). Also, competition is always good.

Note that Unity 2D is based on Qt and also works pretty well these days. It seems that they have spread the risks somewhat.

I do thing the general developments in the ecosystem are somewhat worrying. Nokia's involvement in Qt is becoming more clouded, and everyone is distracted by tablets and smartphones (and naturally, the money streams go into those directions).

That said, that's also an opportunity for more consolidation, so if Canonical play their cards right, the open source desktop may become more single minded and effective.

Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss

#9
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it applies to the foundation Unity is built upon, as well: GTK has 1 person working full-time on it (me). Glib doesn’t even have that. I think evolution is in a similar situation (a complete email client). Also, competition is always good.

I'm confident that Canonical is on top of this.

Nahh, Evolution is not the default client anymore (sadly, i prefer it to thunderbird) and Unity is built on top of compiz, where gnome-shell uses mutter. :(

Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss

#10
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it applies to the foundation Unity is built upon, as well: GTK has 1 person working full-time on it (me). Glib doesn’t even have that. I think evolution is in a similar situation (a complete email client). Also, competition is always good.

Note that Unity 2D is based on Qt and also works pretty well these days. It seems that they have spread the risks somewhat. I do thing the general developments in the ecosystem are somewhat worrying. Nokia's involvement in Qt is becoming more clouded, and everyone is distracted by tablets and smartphones (and naturally, the money streams go into those directions). That said, that's also an opportunity for more consol…

Unity 2D is deprecated: http://www.doadjustyourset.com/2012/07/16/ubuntu-tv-weekly-u...

"Since Unity 2D was depreciated for Ubuntu 12.10, much work is being done to port Ubuntu TV to Unity 3D"

http://www.doadjustyourset.com/2012/07/20/ubuntu-tv-weekly-u...

"Continued progress removing Qt and replacing with Nux"

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA5O... "Unity 2D To Go Away In Ubuntu 12.10"

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