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

[Scott Kitterman]

On Sunday, July 24, 2011 05:07:19 PM 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.
> 
> In any case, we need a short term solution to this. Basically, we are
> going to have to provide a different name under GNOME, because
> otherwise  GNOME users will complain to distros, who will patch GNOME
> to ignore System Settings (I refuse to acknowledge their app).
> 
> A long term solution, sharing settings isn't even counted, as they are
> bound to screw us over yet again in some way. They are not to be
> trusted.
> Adding the panels apps need to them isn't exactly workable either due
> to the number of applicable panels and apps.
> 
> As was proposed earlier, System Settings would call itself "System
> Settings" under KDE, but would prefix "KDE" to the name under all
> other environments. ie. KDE System Settings under xfce.
> 
> I have recieved objections that this collides with the "branding
> policy" however. Given such an objection, what do those of you who
> object propose?

I mentioned this, but didn't actually object (not sure if you got comments 
from others on this).  I think KDE systemsettings is fine.  If you wanted to 
stick with the official rebrandingspeak, I think (I can't tell) it should be 
either Plasma Workspace Systemsettings, KDE Plasma Systemsettings, or 
something like System settings for KDE Frameworks.  I've no idea really.

> A solution must be reached, otherwise it is the users of our
> applications who will ultimately suffer - and we will probably get
> blamed for it.

For Kubuntu we've taken the position that we will follow KDE upstream on this 
and that until there is an upstream solution the only reasonable distro level 
thing to do is patch Gnome systemsettings back to it's old name to avoid user 
confusion.

Scott K