Graphical boot isn't so graphical

[Havoc Pennington]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 05:50:28PM -0400, Thomas Corriher wrote: 
> When you dumb down interfaces in the hope of giving Linux a broader 
> acceptance with the masses, then you are indeed basing designs on 
> marketing decisions.  There are no technical reasons for it. 

I'm not in marketing, but I do want lots of people to use and enjoy
using my software.

If you want to understand the reasons, one place to start is
http://rhl.redhat.com/participate/developers-guide/ chapter 5, and the
several books it recommends. That gives a framework for discussing
user interface issues and making related decisions.  I don't pretend
to know all the answers but there is a process and a body of expertise
here.

You could also spend some time on the receiving end of various user
confusions and fears caused by the stuff scrolling by on boot.

> 2 - I joined this list because I was invited by an e-mail from RH.  
> In that message, I was informed that RH was undergoing a paradigm 
> shift.  Specifically, the entire operations was going open source.  
> The Linux community would be helping with all package and design 
> decisions.  This gave me new hope for RH.  However, the attitude I 
> am reading here is "our way or the highway".  So exactly what is 
> going on?

Open source projects are not "everyone on the mailing list gets to
take a vote." In the case of Linux, Linus gets to decide. In the case
of GNOME, there is a more elaborate procedure involving multiple
module maintainers and a release team. In the case of Apache, there's
yet another process.

But in all of these it's a meritocracy, not a democracy. We've always
accepted suggestions. What's different now is not that we accept
suggestions - we always have - but that external contributors, through
their contributions, can come to be involved in decision making and be
members of the development team. And that now anyone can lurk and see
what's going on during development.

There's also the matter of tradeoffs. You can't do everything at
once. To that end, we posted the project objectives at:
 http://rhl.redhat.com/about/objectives.html

If you don't basically buy into those objectives, you'll be unhappy
contributing to Red Hat Linux because you'll be fighting the project
direction. There has to be an overall direction and what's listed
there is basically what it has been historically.

This direction is open to discussion, sure, but it can't be
everchanging and it has to honestly confront the tradeoffs.
If the direction changes, it will be by consensus of the current
contributors, informed by suggestions and feedback.

I'd say the objectives derive from an overall vision of a "mainstream
general-purpose operating system," and I don't think that basic vision
is likely to change; so objectives that conflict with it aren't likely
to be added.

Havoc