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

[Ben Cooksley]

2011/7/25 Cornelius Schumacher <schumacher at kde.org>:
> On Sunday 24 July 2011 Ben Cooksley wrote:
>> Dropping GNOME out of this, as it seems quite clear they aren't
>> interested in co-operating at all. Which is fairly typical for them,
>> they're insular and only care for themselves.
>
> I don't want to let a statement like this stand as it is. There are a lot of
> people in the GNOME community who do want to cooperate. There certainly are
> also people who don't. That's the same in our community. Not everybody cares
> about cross-desktop collaboration, and this creates issues, as we have seen.

In this case, they have not surfaced it seems. Only the ones who don't
want to co-operate have surfaced.

>
> Still, we should treat each other with respect. I understand that it makes you
> angry, if things break because of decisions outside your control, which you
> consider to be wrong. But being angry doesn't solve problems, especially not
> when communication about a common solution is required.
>
> There are a lot of technical things we can do to address this specific
> problem, taking settings from the platform, making configuration available in
> context, making KDE applications and frameworks more modular and less
> interdependent. Not everything can be done easily, but we should look for the
> right solutions and persue them.

They will take time to implement. And can only be done in the next
release anyway - assuming people work on it.

KDE 4.7 will probably be shipped by distributions alongside GNOME 3.0.
A short term solution is required at the bare minimum to fix that -
which can be done as I noted. Otherwise our users will be the ones who
will suffer.

>
> Additionally we need to talk about how to do integration across desktops. We
> should not be content with having insular desktops, neither on the GNOME side,
> nor on our side, nor anywhere else. This only limits us, how we are perceived,
> and what users think what they can do with KDE software. We aren't the
> monolithic desktop, which only runs KDE software, and which is required by all
> KDE applications. That's exactly the misconception we are trying to get rid
> of.
>
> So let's have a constructive conversation with GNOME and others how to share
> settings, how to integrate applications running on different workspaces
> independent of the toolkit they are implemented with. The desktop summit
> provides a great opportunity for that.
>
> But again, please act with respect for your own and other communities. Being
> aggressive doesn't help in finding good solutions for users, and it's really
> not the atmosphere, I'd like to see in KDE.

Whilst not an atmosphere I like either, the short term solution
appears to have been totally rejected on both sides. How do you
suggest this is solved?

> --
> Cornelius Schumacher <schumacher at kde.org>
>

Regards,
Ben