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

[David Jarvie]

On Mon, July 25, 2011 12:32 pm, Mark wrote:
> Hi Ben,
>
> Could you read and comment on my proposal:
> http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=131142514605051&w=2
> I would like to implement this in the spec, KDE en Gnome, but i need
> some pointers on where i should make such edits and to get it
> approved.
>
> I think that is the most sane solution that doesn't require multiple
> desktop files.
>
> If you agree on this, what do i need to do next?
> Just some guesses..
> - Propose the updated standard in the freedesktop mailing list (which
> one?)
> - Make patched for KDE (which component? where? file?)
> - Make patches for gnome (which component? where? file?)

This proposal is fine for technically literate users, and might provide a
short term fix, but, as Friedrich has already pointed out, it is not good
for a user who just uses whatever desktop happens to be installed on
his/her system, and installs whichever applications seem suitable
regardless of what desktop they come from. Such users won't necessarily
know whether the application they are using is a KDE one or a Gnome one or
something else. Faced with two alternative settings applications, say
"System Settings" and "KDE System Settings"/"Gnome System Settings", that
user would not realise the relevance of the Gnome/KDE System Settings, and
would likely ignore it even if it happened to be the one needed for the
application.

The only long term solution for ordinary users is to have interoperability
of settings between desktops, so that it won't matter which system
settings application they use. Applications with more specialist needs,
i.e. settings which aren't (yet) interoperable, would need to provide
configuration of those settings from within the application.

-- 
David Jarvie.
KDE developer.
KAlarm author - http://www.astrojar.org.uk/kalarm