[Desktop_architects] Printing dialog and GNOME

Jeff Waugh jdub at perkypants.org
Tue Dec 13 08:40:49 PST 2005


<quote who="Timothy D. Witham">

> Then you are missing the point.  One thing about enterprises is that they
> really want to be able to configure systems the way that they want to use
> them.

We provide for that through a centralised configuration system, which can
impose defaults or mandatory settings as per the administrator's purpose.
Despite the focus of the discussion on "removing preferences" (people keep
saying "removing functionality", but that's not really what is going on),
there are obviously still a huge number of things that may be configured by
users and administrators, should they need to.

> It seems that the Gnome/Evolution path has become "We are just like the MS
> interface."

This is incorrect. As mentioned at the DTL meeting, a Siemens study from a
few years back demonstrated that duplicated interfaces result in decreased
user acceptance and increased training costs; while your software may look
the same, it won't behave or feel the same. You can see this more obviously
in the rest of GNOME than Evolution, for historical reasons (which I hope
will change soon).

> I think that we had the discussion that a strategy of just following the
> incumbent and doing what they do isn't compelling for anybody to move to
> Linux but that seems to be the strategy here.

Note that it was the Fedora and Ubuntu representatives (obviously focusing
on GNOME) who said exactly the same thing of OpenOffice.org. :-) We are not
going to win by matching the competition, we're only going to win by beating
them.

> > I wouldn't jump from "removing functionality" to "failure."  I think
> > that it's safe to say that maybe we've not made it right for you, but
> > that's a design decision, not a failure.
>
> Sorry but that is the definition of failure - making something less useful
> is failure. I used to recommend Evolution to corporations looking for a
> Linux mail client. I no longer do that.

In what way is Evolution "less useful"? I'm not sure how you made the leap
from Havoc's point above to this, particularly as Havoc wasn't stating his
support for "removing functionality", just his disagreement with its
connection to "failure".

- Jeff

-- 
linux.conf.au 2006: Dunedin, New Zealand               http://linux.conf.au/
 
         "Applications are just kernel testcases." - Andrew Morton



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