Which styles to keep?

[pinheiro]

A Thursday 16 August 2007 12:00:30, Torsten Rahn escreveu:
> > there is little point to having the ability to pick styles if people
> > can't take advantage of it and there most definitely people who enjoy
> > simpler
>
> We are NOT questioning the ability to pick "simpler" styles in general. My
> concern is that KDE is targeted at a market (at least it claims to be). By
> far most of the users among this market are everyday users. Not
> programmers. Not lovers of old operating systems.
>
> If we have a large amount of outdated styles and a small amount of styles
> that match the average taste of most people in the target group then there
> is certainly something wrong there.
>
> It's like a vegetarian restaurant offering a menu that contains mostly meat
> meals (really just because the cook loves them) and only one or two
> vegetarian meals. Still the restaurant claims to be a restaurant that is
> mostly targeted at vegetarians - because it's only the single vegetarian
> meal which they are running ads for.  I'm sure most vegetarians would feel
> either irritated or embarrassed if I called that restaurant a very good
> vegetarian restaurant that doesn't leave open desires for vegetarians (Of
> course the vegetarian meal might indeed be very good but that doesn't make
> it a "vegetarian restaurant" yet).
> And just like Aaron I say "What's the problem? They sell food. And as long
> as you are able to chew the meat meals, swallow them and as long as they
> don't smell really bad (yes, it's dead pork!) I'm pretty sure vegetarians
> will simply love the additional choice of meat meals and they should get
> offered on the menu!
>
> After all the vegetarians get offered a wide range of "choice". They should
> praise the cook for the wide range of "choice" among meat meals they get
> offered (of which none is a realistic option for most of them).
> Seriously, I (as a non-vegetarian) have no problems calling a vegetarian
> restaurant a vegetarian restaurant if it also offers a few meat meals for
> the few non-vegetarian people that (for whatever reason) got lost in that
> restaurant. Still the ratio needs to fit.
>
> Like that restaurant (which needs to decide vegetarian restaurant or
> a "normal" restaurant) we need to make a tough choice: Do we want to be a
> professional restaurant mostly targeted at every day users (that might also
> be a good fit for programmers and people who love old operating systems) .
> Or do we want to be a hacker desktop (that might also appeal to some every
> day users). If it's the latter then Matthias Ettrich's Usenet posting 10
> years ago was slightly misleading and I'm probably wrong here.
>
> > >  I can promise I'll switch the style before making any public
> > > screenshots
> >
> > that's probably the important bit: what we show the public.
>
> Yes, like the "vegetarian" restaurant that openly advertizes "just" it's
> single vegetarian meal while hiding the remaining meals that are really
> targeted at the cook.
>
> Seriously, I have watched several people installing KDE on their desktop
> and paid close attention to the reactions when I pointed out that people
> get offered a choice among styles (not really being aware myself that these
> styles are aging ...).
> And judging from the reaction of most people who aren't linux enthusiasts
> browsing through the styles, the default choice that gets offered is pretty
> overwhelming in terms of quantity and rather underwhelming in terms of
> quality. And this _does_ affect their opinion whether KDE is "for them"
> yet.
>
> Torsten

I agrea in the fullest extent. 

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