unity-design team mailing list archive

[Mark Shuttleworth <mark@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Brett Cornwall wrote:
> It all boils down to customization. I really feel that the way to make
> everyone happy is to have reasonable configuration for notify-OSD.
> Being able to choose the position easily and whether the policy is
> fixed or dynamic would allow peace to any that are dissatisfied. The
> rest that still don't like it are still free to just remove the package.

A guiding principle in Ayatana is to *reduce* customisation, not
increase it.

Why?

First, we get much better collaboration and communication, and much
better testing, if everyone is looking at the same experience. We found
this with Ubuntu itself - we reduced the default application install set
to a single app for each major function: one browser, one mail client,
one word processor. That was controversial at the time - most
distributions were competing on HOW MANY apps they could install in one go.

One of the great failings of the community approach is that it attracts
folks who like to customise the environment to the point where it is
"perfect for them", at which point they stop caring about the
environment that the typical user sees. They run "the latest code from
CVS" so they don't care about bugs in the stable version. They swap out
components for things that are more interesting and then they have no
visibility AT ALL on the pieces a new user sees.

We will not make that mistake.

In Ayatana, we'll take an opinionated stance, and we'll apply some
common principles to the design process, and we'll live with the results.

I have no interest whatsoever in making it possible for anybody to have
any environment they want - we already have that. I'm interested in
driving forwards to build a default out of the box experience which is
as good as we can make it for the new, consumer user. Most people on
this list are NOT a new, consumer user, so I'm afraid you will have to
work hard to think from that perspective if you want your ideas to
resonate here.

Mark

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