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

[Scott Kitterman]

On Sunday, July 24, 2011 05:52:08 PM Cornelius Schumacher wrote:
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.

I haven't seen anything in any mailing list posts that is nearly as aggressive 
as knowningly reusing a name that was in use like systemsettings.  My word for 
the messages that the Gnome moderators didn't like the tone of is accurate.

Scott K