
On portability of Gnome - bkor
http://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2014/02/19/on-portability/
======
unicornporn
Not entirely related – but god how bad Gnome 3 still looks. I was under the
impression that they would make some changes to the initial UI design. I'm
sure they have, but it still looks terrible. I've not found a lot of UI design
that hurts my eyes so much. I always get stuck on the upper left corner and
the edge curvature of the menubar at the corner of the screen (activities:
[http://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/files/2014/02/gnome-on-
freebs...](http://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/files/2014/02/gnome-on-freebsd.png)
). I feel a bit bad when hating on open-source projects, but they really need
to hear this.

I'm so glad there's XFCE.

~~~
Mikeb85
I personally love Gnome Shell's look and UI. To each their own...

~~~
wbond
I agree - I was only willing to switch to Linux full time once Gnome 3 was
released. I find Unity garish and Gnome 2 and KDE to be far too tweak happy
with lots of ugly rough edges.

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quarterto
So basically, "we're not forcing you to use systemd! you can shim it!"

~~~
bkor
Systemd provides a replacement for things like ConsoleKit. It further makes
various things much simpler for GNOME. It provides dbus interfaces. We're not
forcing, it is that we do like to share the amount of work a slight bit.
Meaning: those "portability" requests are nice, but almost everyone uses
Linux. Isn't it logical that after 10+ years of making things also possible on
_BSD, we now have Linux as main focus?

All those portability claims and that there somehow good: you're just doing
things for lowest common denominator. Requiring a huge amount of effort to
change or develop low level bits across _BSD and Linux.

Now systemd comes along and does a lot of things for us. While you'd still
have dbus. We now have people who solely developed for Linux and they're
installing FreeBSD, that's indicative on how much development resources there
are on _BSD!

You imply that GNOME developers (none running or knowing anything other than
Linux) are bad because they're not also developers for _BSD. I've seen other
people claim that us focussing mainly on Linux will somehow reduce the amount
of help we get from _BSD and so on. Yet practically speaking, the amount of
developer resource we received during most of GNOME 2.x from_ BSD is pretty
low (mainly implementations; hal, upower backends, etc). Plus often lagged
behind a bit.

Recently we're making clear that we focus on Linux. We're still as open to
portability as before, but someone really has to put in an effort to do this.
Putting that with people who have only used Linux and mainly care for Linux is
a bit strange IMO, especially after all those years.

Given that *BSD often did lag behind and did eventually provide
implementations, the situation has not changed much. Expect for the often
repeated claim of "forcing things".

~~~
senko
_almost everyone uses Linux_

Actually, almost everyone uses Windows. Of those that do not, majority uses
OSX.

As someone who's been a Linux desktop user since the early 2000s and was
laughed out loud because everyone uses Windows so why even bother, I'm
saddened by seeing the same logic from the GNOME team.

(PS. Obvoisly we're talking about desktop here so Android doesn't count).

~~~
abenga
Is it not obviously implied that the "everyone" here is "everyone interested
in using Gnome"?

~~~
bkor
I actually meant the people helping out at GNOME. So the developers,
translators, etc. If everyone helping out in GNOME, then I find it logical
that the focus is mainly on Linux.

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DArcMattr
Some background on the OpenBSD video:
[http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140219085851](http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140219085851)

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mixmastamyk
Meh. I understand the BSDs are great for server applications and that's where
I'd happily use them.

But the market for a free desktop is tiny--for a BSD desktop (!OSX) miniscule.
I see no problem with letting the burden of maintaining ports fall on those
who would use them. (Assuming what he wrote was true, that they aren't making
ports to *BSD difficult.)

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bijanous
Is it possible to port gnome to nokia smart phones or other smart devices?

~~~
bijbij
Yes bijan. it is possible but it needs tremendous amount of work. :)

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nousernamesleft
What a remarkably dishonest argument. The example of gnome running on openbsd
is precisely because the openbsd ports people patched the hell out of it to
remove all the non-portable crap. Leaving a gnome with a bunch of features
gone. And notice Antoine who did that work and provided that screenshot is one
of the people who thinks there is no future for gnome on non-linux systems:
[https://lists.debian.org/debian-
devel/2013/10/msg00580.html](https://lists.debian.org/debian-
devel/2013/10/msg00580.html)

~~~
coldtea
> _because the openbsd ports people patched the hell out of it to remove all
> the non-portable crap. Leaving a gnome with a bunch of features gone._

Make up your mind. Was what they removed "crap" or was it "a bunch of
features"?

~~~
nousernamesleft
Why do you present a false dichotomy? The gnome team (and presumably at least
some gnome users) consider them features. Those features are implemented as
non-portable crap. Saying gnome works fine on openbsd and pointing to part of
gnome working only after an openbsd guy ripped out big chunks of it is just
silly.

~~~
bkor
In the blogpost referenced here as well as another blogpost, OpenBSD and
FreeBSD developers appreciate the work that Ryan has been doing. Calling
everything "crap" is a bit easy. What I did learn (since today) is that we
were waiting for them (*BSD) to contact us (GNOME), while once only 1 person
contacted them, we got a lot of cooperation going.

~~~
nousernamesleft
>What I did learn (since today) is that we were waiting for them (*BSD) to
contact us (GNOME)

Really? All the patches that were sent upstream and ignored for years wasn't
contact?

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izietto
OMG current GNOME is really ugly

