I think this is an interesting and informed article regarding the future of the Gnome desktop environment. I found item #7 of the possible "recovery strategies" to be the most telling. The very first step of any software development life cycle should be to determine the user requirements. This means consulting with the users to find out what their needs are and provide better solutions to meet those needs.

I don't know if it's arrogance or what, but it seems that more and more, and certainly in the case of Gnome and other open source development, the users are being left of out the development cycle until the testing phase. Developers seem to be developing for themselves, rather than for the end user. The attitude seems to be, "We know what you need better than you know what you need so here it is. Hope you like it". I guess the future will show whether this is the proper design philosophy but personally, I think not.

i came late to Gnome i liked much for the idea and the name but when i start using i was really deluded
so first i switched to KDE ...now i am trying Xfce

Anyway Unity for me was a even bigger delusion then last Gnome

This rather echos the bun-fight on the Gimp-Users mailing list about the change in 2.8 introducing the Save/Export behaviour. Although it seems to have annoyed some users, the GIMP developers at least have a publicly declared vision and have backed it up with research of their target customers.

That said, my impression is that the sample size of their research is tiny and non representative of the majority of GIMP's users, but I applaud them for taking a strong stance on the vision for the project. Software projects are not democracies and need strong leadership with a clear direction.

Now if the GMP developers could get a bit more organised and release their bug-fixes in a more timely manner, maybe I would actually switch to using 2.8.

Kevin

2.8.1 doesn't seems buggy ...well i didn't try yet with a graphic tablet there may be a serious bug, but for the rest i didn't saw critical or very annoying bugs

In my personal experience, I have nothing to say against OpenSource developers. Many times they have heard me and took my ideas. It's great as an end user be able to communicate with developers as equals, is one of the things that I like in the OpenSource.
I'm using KDE since forever. I think GNOME 3 and GNOME Shell are very new projects and we must give them time to progress. Generally users are reluctant to big changes. That's what happened with the release of KDE 4, many people complaining and unhappy. Now KDE 4 is very mature and many users satisfied. I think GNOME 3 is going to succeed.
By the way, KDE has a brainstorming site where users can vote the ideas of others. Does GNOME something similar?

Totally agree with you there PC. Have you looked at Linux-Mint with cinnamon?

Yes, and that's goodness. No revolution comes from user votes. Users think in terms of what they already know. I'm pretty sure that if you had asked the Americans in 1861 what could be done to improve communications, they would have voted en masse for better horses for the Pony Express. Revolution requires visionaries. If the idea is good and implemented well (which may not be the case with Gnome3) then it will have followers, but they have to see it first.

A portable telephone, with a tactile screen, an on-board photo/video camera, a positioning system, accelerometers, and in which you can load programs? Are you mad?

I will ,it is also time to update my linux partition ...or maybe start again with a clean install

I have been using mint 12 with gnome shell since the beginning of the year. Before that I was running ubuntu gnome shell remix. I have to say that I love it. I started with the idea that shell would be horrible. Yes, I read all the reviews about it. And had tried ubuntu with unity -- it was okay but missing the finesse -- before using the shell. So I figured same thing. But no. Gnome shell is pretty cool. I just don't understand the controversy. I use windows xp at work and find myself wishing for the shell all day, just about. Finding things on my comp at work is difficult. Changing anything is almost impossible.

Sure, there is room for improvement, room for growth. But that can be said for anything. ISO 9001 standard: continuous improvement.

And I like all the extensions available. I like the different themes. I like being able to modify how the shell looks and works on MY computer.

The prob is that people don't like change. They don't want anything different. Sure new features, but same familiar packaging. I'm sure Microsoft didn't consult with anyone concerning their "Metro" interface. But the difference between windows and linux distros using gnome shell is that we have options. We can change things. I don't have much programing experience but I have changed things to suite my tastes.

I've been a Linux user for only a couple years. But I have seen that Linux users have become complacent and lazy. "Why command line when there is a GUI?" "Why compile when we should be getting packages ready for install?" "Why isn't it out-of-box-ready?" "Why should I spend 30 mins configuring my wireless driver?" etc, etc, etc. What's up with that? I don't want to be preachy, but all those "Conveniences" are available with windows. As well as the little pecularities that come with the system. I set up friends on Linux systems and I love trying to figure out why something isn't working. Because then I can fix the problem -- albeit many times with the aid of the community. That's Linux.

I don't condemn Gnome for their move to the shell. They had a vision and went with it. Our job as Linux users is to take that vision and make it better. And I bet our Windows friends wished they had the freedom to do that.

When life gives you lemons, take a distro, modify it, change the UI, delete packages, change default programs, compile it, upload it, publicize why you think it's better than x, then see how the people like LemonLinuxOS.

And as for Gimp 2.8 save/export -- was different, but now it's a norm.

Be adaptable. Break into your shell.

Hahaha!

There are some good points made and interesting opinions offered in this thread, as well as some flawed analogies put forth.

The first thing a systems analyst is taught (or should be taught) is the software development life cycle. The first step is to determine user requirements. Yes, the user doesn't always know the best way to do things but the users know what they need, and they also know when new software makes their daily tasks less efficient. It also makes sense to take input from the end user and incorporate their ideas into the development process, unless the developers are so arrogant to think they know it all and the end user needs are meaningless. Smart developers cultivate their end users and make them an integral part of the development process. Give the end users what they need or they will abandon you.

In the case of Gnome3 / Gnome Shell, there isn't much there that I would consider innovative. Pretty much all of the openGL innovations had already been done in compiz and other compositing window managers for X. When compared to Gnome2, there are tons of inefficiencies though. Pretty much all of the tweaks, addons and shell extensions were designed to get back the functionality you already had in Gnome2. Without all of the tweaks and addons, Gnome3 is practically unusable.

A user who has never known the capabilities of Gnome2 + compiz might be OK with the out of the box generic Gnome shell. It would be like trying to explain to a one eyed person what it was like to have two eyes. Yes, they can be happy with one eye but they would never understand what it was like to have two eyes. In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.

In my opinion, the decision to add the export option for all formats other than xcf in Gimp 2.8 was a poor decision that was totally unnecessary. When I load in a png and make an edit, it makes more sense to simply save the edit, rather than export the file. Exporting implies changing of the original format, which is not the case in this example. In earlier versions of ms word, there was an export option to convert to pdf. In later versions, they choose to go with a dropdown in the save dialog, which is just the opposite approach taken by the Gimp developers. It's not about what one is used to, it's about what is best and most efficient.

That's my opinion. Yours may differ.