Formal complaint concerning the use of the name "System Settings" by GNOME

[Olav Vitters]

On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 09:17:17AM +1200, Ben Cooksley wrote:
> >
> > Now lets go into something more productive and perhaps we can fix this
> > before the sunny Desktop Summit.
> 
> Hi Olav,
> 
> In terms of being productive surrounding this, I have several questions:
> 
> Screenshots on your live wiki indicate that GNOME developers were
> aware of the use of the "System Settings" name by KDE. Why did your
> developers deliberately proceed with the use of this name, knowing it
> would cause a conflict? (This was the primary reason why I was
> particularly angry about the discovery of your use of this name)

I don't own any developers, nor am I a GNOME developer (see end of the
email for list of the things I do for GNOME).

This said, I think it was already mentioned that 'System Settings' was
purposely limited to GNOME and later Unity. So care was taken to ensure
KDE would not have a confusing menu entry.

The rest I'd guess is either oversight, different assumptions or just
lack of time.

> Is there any reason why it cannot be renamed once more as soon as is
> possible so that the next release your team makes fixes this issue?

This has been explained already I think.

Be aware that I don't have any team.

> I would prefer to resolve this issue as soon as possible, to minimise
> the work packagers will inevitably do to block KDE System Settings
> under GNOME, and the resulting KDE application user support issues
> that will arise.

I think I explained that I was speaking as a moderator. I'm also in the
GNOME release team, GNOME sysadmin team and a bugmaster. In none of
those things I've noticed this.

Regarding release team: We almost always let developers decide things
and gently steer things in the right direction. See
https://live.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning if you want more background on
how things are done @ GNOME. Not sure how it works in KDE, but although
I have my own opinion on this topic, I prefer leave this to the
developers.

I've noticed some of the replies you've got are a bit harsh. This is not
how a discussion should be and this is why I responded + cc'ed the
mailing list (to prevent it). I really care that a discussion is being
held nicely (assume people mean well + somewhat concise in the amount of
messages) and step in when it is not.

Regarding this topic: Various GNOME developers have already replied,
suggest to continue the discussion with them and I'll just lurk.
-- 
Regards,
Olav