Flamebait article with a lot of factual errors:<p>Article confuses GNOME 3 with GNOME Shell (Linux Mint and Ubuntu both use GNOME 3 the framework). Both the UI and the framework went through a huge transition, both arguably hurt the developers and the users.<p>Nokia's abandonement of GNOME has nothing to do with GNOME 3. SUSE was a KDE distro from the very start, years ago. Ubuntu not shipping with GNOME 3 the UI by default is less to do with GNOME Shell and more to do with Ubuntu pushing their own thing (valid strategy, but not a response to GNOME 3 mess). The only major distro to react to GNOME 3 disruption is Linux Mint - which had to do so because <i>both</i> Unity and Shell weren't there yet.<p>Back to Apple envy and "poisonous touch" - whoever paid attention to what's going on with GNOME development knows there was (is?) much more Web "envy" (or rather panic: "it's going to render the desktop obsolete!"). In fact, I'd say Apple in this case served as an example of an ecosystem that successfully pushed <i>against</i> the web and obsolesence of desktop (or rather "native") apps.
It's not Apple's fault<p>It's the fault of 'the inmates running the asylum' thinking that visual gimmicks + removing functionality until the product is lobotomized == User Experience<p>And don't give me the BS that Gnome cares about UX, they don't.<p>How do you know you care about the user? They like you. Sometimes they even like you enough to give you money.
The article seems to gather a number of unrelated assumptions and keeps repeating them until they must be true.<p>For instance, a statement like "...the radical rewrite that is the GNOME 3 desktop seems to have pleased almost no one." is backed up with <i>no data at all</i>. And that's exactly the problem. Without data, who is anyone to claim that GNOME is gaining or losing users? Or market share, for that matter. Personally I love GNOME 3, but what I personally think doesn't matter one bit.<p>And while I respect Linux (sic) Torvalds as much as anyone, the fact that he is a kernel hacker means he is as far away from GNOME's desired target audience as anyone could be. His dislike of GNOME 3 could almost be seen as a positive sign.<p>I think the articles touches on many interesting things, such as:<p>- How and why did a number of distributions decide to go their own way? How does GNOME plan to respond? Maybe being the default for a smaller number of distros means less restrictions and less need for compromise, who knows.<p>- GNOME seems to focus on being great on touch devices, but how will they end up on those devices if they don't sell hardware?<p>- How can GNOME measure its success to know they're heading the right way? How do they define "success"? If it's the number of users, how can it gather usage data?<p>Those are the things I'd like to know more about. Not empty claims of users leaving in droves, or the suggestion that the only way GNOME will survive would be to return to its old ways (because back in the day, GNOME 2 dwarfed Windows and OS X, right?).<p>(I've read it a number of times now, and I am still completely in the dark as to how Apple ties in to all this. Surely Apple must be important, since it's mentioned in the title.)
Buried in a very misleading article is a good point:<p>> (Apple) did not rewrite the OS X desktop that runs on Macs, nor did it try to re-imagine the desktop computing paradigm. Apple created something entirely new that was always designed with touch screens in mind.<p>I have never understood why traditional desktops must adopt to touch screen based GUIs. Why can't both be independently developed? Why is Microsoft and Canonical trying to unify seemingly unrelated user input paradigms?
I'm using OSX as things just work on it and the last thing I need is friction working with my OS - but every day I'm finding it harder to justify my relationship with Apple.<p>It's hard to believe with so many big players around that the choice is so limited right now.
The way this article is written is highly misleading.<p>> iOS for mobile devices Apple, well, created iOS for mobile devices. It did not rewrite the OS X desktop that runs on Macs. Apple created something entirely new that was always designed with touch screens in mind.<p>Except that is untrue. Or to quote Apple during the iPhone's initial release:<p>> iPhone uses OS X, the world’s most advanced operating system.<p>What later became known as "iOS" is based on OS X which is its self based on Darwin. You could fairly argue that OS X for the i-devices was a fork but to say Apple made something "entirely new" is just false.
I use gnome because my computer can't run unity. :)<p>I didn't wanted to change to other desktop because as it always happens to me, something goes wrong and i can't use my system for half a day. (Today i'm upgrading to 11.10, the support term is over for .04, I hope it goes well...)
<p><pre><code> > Linux Torvalds himself called GNOME 3 "an unholy
> mess", going on to add that he's never met anyone
> who likes it.
</code></pre>
Stay classy, El Reg.