FESCo meeting summary for 2009-06-26

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 06/28/2009 10:32 PM, Rex Dieter wrote:
> 
> Rahul, I question the point of ... making laundry lists of pros, cons, bugs 
> of desktop X vs Y...  I'm sure folks can come up with a similar list of 
> gnome (or other) related negative items, or kde-only features too but I 
> question it's constructiveness.

The constructiveness if for KDE SIG and individuals to accept that his
claim of "perfect integration" is silly when there are many gaps to
address. This is unrelated to whatever is being voted by FESCo. I bring
it up only because I find extreme views in the KDE related discussions
to be annoying.  Anybody who questions this is "scared" of losing the
default, against "choice" or "freedom". This is an appeal to emotions
instead of a rational discussion.  This approach is deeply flawed. The
KDE SIG *is* doing many things right. Weekly IRC meetings with proper
summaries and IRC logs is one of them.

I happily switch between DE's just to check out what's happening. Spend
quite sometime with KDE when KDE 4 was released and even wrote a article
for Red Hat Magazine. Then with XFCE (for the spin) and recently with
LXDE (for the remix) and now with GNOME. So this isn't about my favourites.

> My only comments here:
> 
> 1.  The desktop spin *is* gnome for cryin out loud.  Seriously, common sense 
> is just screaming in my head to call a spade a spade.

I have no problems with that except for the concern that users who are
completely new to Linux don't understand jargon like GNOME or KDE. It
means nothing and I think download page isn't going to the right place
to do it. I would like to see a good proposal, perhaps a mockup showing
us how it can be done instead of voting in FESCo.

> 2.  A bigger question to me is what does it mean to be the "default" 
> desktop.  All this "it's the default because..." comments make me wonder if 
> folks are just grasping for reasons to justify the status quo.  Where or how 
> is this documented anywhere?  If it isn't, shouldn't it be?

Why single out desktop environments? Is the justifications for all of
our defaults documented anywhere? Shouldn't it be?

I think, the amount of resources within Fedora directed at one desktop
environment is a big factor and it does make a significant difference in
the end user experience when new technologies developed within Fedora.

> And, the answers to these questions will only get more important over time, 
> it seems, as more and more viable alternatives arise (within Fedora), like 
> sugar, XFCE, LXDE, etc...

.. and this makes it even more important to make the right decision.
Would it be right to provide a long list of desktop environments and
live cd's associated within the download page or upfront within the
installer? How do you even describe the differences appropriately?

You don't have to answer these questions but considering that the
download page is just one smaller piece in a bigger question on what
should be the default desktop environment and how other DE's should be
represented, how about the KDE SIG bring this up to the Fedora Board and
get the answers to the most important questions first? From the Fedora
Board discussions, it appears there is consensus of retaining GNOME as
the default and everything else would fall from that. Ask the right
questions to even hope of getting the right answers.

Rahul