GNOME 3: Why It Failed : Fedora 16 And GNOME Shell: Tested And Reviewed

A good overview of what seems to be a new trend in Linux desktop development - “we know better, you’ll get used to it.” I’ve tried to like GNOME 3 but I’ve ultimately reverted to using WindowMaker (which, fortunately, has resumed development) and some supporting apps. Too many aspects of the desktop metaphor were thrown away by the GNOME project in a blind effort to emulate a union between the Mac and the iPad. It strikes me as ironic that a free desktop should take it upon itself to make these kinds of big decisions without user feedback - a practice reminiscent of proprietary software companies, most notably Apple, with whom I and others believe the GNOME core developers have become enthralled. Indeed, I’m sure most GNOME users were content to continue to refine the GNOME 2.x desktop rather than rip its guts out. In the world of open source, it should be the users who decide. From the article: " What makes all of this worse is the way GNOME dismisses the complaints, chalking it up to the fact that people don’t like change and that its users will acclimate. Fair enough. Except they won’t get used to it. GNOME isn’t the only free desktop on the block. The users will just leave. Even staunch supporters of the GTK (along with Linus himself) have left GNOME for the lower-end XFCE user interface." http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fedora-16-gnome-3-review,3155-27.html