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Topic: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

Hello together,

I had this in mind long before posting it now, but was unsure about. But after having those discussions to occur again and again with different events: Do we really need the Gnome-desktop within the repositories in the future? What about a complete removal? The major problem is the: The desktop-environment relies on systemd and even integrates proprietary services as default (Link).

Last but not least there is a discussion now about having advertising within the "Software-Center" - for proprietary software: Link

What I mean exactly: Having all those issues back in mind, there will be always more work incoming when integrating another version of the desktop-environment itself. Besides the point of removing proprietary interfaces and solving freedom-issues the risk is higher forgetting some points or even worse: The concurrent version is no longer possible to be modified at all because of essential functions and API-implementations.

So for now I think it would be interesting to think about a complete removal for Gnome from the repositories. Just the desktop-environment of course, meaning also the basic applications within. What do you think about? Perhaps there are other ideas or the problem I'm looking at is not really a big one?

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

No arguments from me, I dislike gnome3 anyways.

It is massively and completely bloated. Mate is better for people who want something gnomish anyhow. smile

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

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Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

Speaking about myself: Mate is nice, but I like it even more smaller. So I'm using LxQt, icewm, fluxbox or dwm for different approaches. Of course not all installed on one machine. But it seems like Gnome is getting complicated being modified when looking at the issues mentioned above. And there are just good desktop-environments for Hyperbola within the repositories without Gnome! smile

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

4 (edited by zapper 2019-11-29 03:56:19)

Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

throgh wrote:

Speaking about myself: Mate is nice, but I like it even more smaller. So I'm using LxQt, icewm, fluxbox or dwm for different approaches. Of course not all installed on one machine. But it seems like Gnome is getting complicated being modified when looking at the issues mentioned above. And there are just good desktop-environments for Hyperbola within the repositories without Gnome! smile

Yes indeed... I use draco currently, although it needs some modifications before it will work completely on 0.4. wink

Waiting to upgrade to 0.4 aka.

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

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Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

You mean this here? Link | souce-code
Would be nice having this within the repositories. smile

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

throgh wrote:

You mean this here? Link | souce-code
Would be nice having this within the repositories. smile

Yep, but as I said, it still needs to have a non-dbus change made before it can be used in 0.4.

Aka, removing dbus as a requirement and implementing a way to shutdown, restart, suspend without dbus.

Other than that, it is golden already.  and the dev is extremely kind, but obviously don't take advantage of him.  I want to see draco be usable without dbus. 

PS, if you want to build from source in 0.3, use the slackware build method on that github page.   It works in Hyperbola too! wink

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

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Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

Will give this a try! Have you created a proposal for integration in future releases? Otherwise it would be cool.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

throgh wrote:

Will give this a try! Have you created a proposal for integration in future releases? Otherwise it would be cool.

I asked rodlie to make a nondbus option for powerkit & draco desktop. He said he was willing from what I could see. wink

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

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Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

Very cool. The current version of Gnome in the repositories is being ported to sndio now as I can see. But at last it won't get easier to have a real libre version of the desktop-environment in the future.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

10 (edited by throgh 2019-11-29 22:54:45)

Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

Bad news as I've found another point for being critical against Gnome. Reading a news-posting from the German portal "Pro-Linux" here: https://www.pro-linux.de/news/1/27625/f … ungen.html

I'll try to translate the major issues:

  • It is about the news release of Flatpak, which introduces "pay what you want" for selected application-images.

  • The GNOME-Foundation stands behind this upcomding payment-service, even though it is not only "pay what you want" and planned also for exclusive application-releases within the near future.

  • Based on the thoughts of some Gnome-developers Flatpak should be recognized as "packaging-system of the future".

Perhaps some of the points are known? I'm just annoyed about this next tryout bringing the principles of "free software" to an absurdity at all as there is no free fork of Flatpak existing and this packaging-system is developing the same as the Android-platform. What comes up next? Installation of "applications from unkown source" forbidden? And what about the ideas coming up directly from some developers of the Gnome-project? A bloated desktop-environment and questionable points named already here. hmm

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

throgh wrote:

Bad news as I've found another point for being critical against Gnome. Reading a news-posting from the German portal "Pro-Linux" here: https://www.pro-linux.de/news/1/27625/f … ungen.html

I'll try to translate the major issues:

  • It is about the news release of Flatpak, which introduces "pay what you want" for selected application-images.

  • The GNOME-Foundation stands behind this upcomding payment-service, even though it is not only "pay what you want" and planned also for exclusive application-releases within the near future.

  • Based on the thoughts of some Gnome-developers Flatpak should be recognized as "packaging-system of the future".

Perhaps some of the points are known? I'm just annoyed about this next tryout bringing the principles of "free software" to an absurdity at all as there is no free fork of Flatpak existing and this packaging-system is developing the same as the Android-platform. What comes up next? Installation of "applications from unkown source" forbidden? And what about the ideas coming up directly from some developers of the Gnome-project? A bloated desktop-environment and questionable points named already here. hmm

Great... even more reasons to tell Gnome devs to suck it...

hmm


But seriously, this is just plain sad...

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

12 (edited by throgh 2019-11-30 10:08:40)

Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

zapper wrote:

Great... even more reasons to tell Gnome devs to suck it...

hmm


But seriously, this is just plain sad...

I think it is not helpful to be mean as they do what they do because they think it is the correct way - and they don't harm anyone at all while it is a matter of arrogance and ignoranc including such things and processes with flatpak mentioned above in the points. Yes, software-freedom is damaged in the long run, but there are already others: The failure of accepting systemd as "default" - even from the FSF? The failure of getting involved on coporate management and the toxic waste of capitalism? It's a complete system failure doing this and it seems to me better telling them that this is just the opposite because it is changing the project itself in a whole! It is more work in future to get Gnome "libre" and free from proprietary services. A very sad decision but that's what I've written earlier and it encourages me when updating Hyperbola on the one system left with version 0.2 where I've tried Gnome. It's a pity!

I know what the message is but I think telling "suck it" is not very kind and better to criticize the roadmap itself instead. So after all I think Hyperbola has no further room for Gnome in the repositories. Could be wrong, but the project needs much work when another actual version should be integrated. Time which could better used for other packages. smile I think of creating an issue about this, listing all the non-libre acitivities mentioned here. Of course this is at last a decision of the community and developer-team behind, so it's open for thoughts.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

13 (edited by zapper 2019-11-30 10:32:07)

Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

throgh wrote:
zapper wrote:

Great... even more reasons to tell Gnome devs to suck it...

hmm


But seriously, this is just plain sad...

I think it is not helpful to be mean as they do what they do because they think it is the correct way - and they don't harm anyone at all while it is a matter of arrogance and ignoranc including such things and processes with flatpak mentioned above in the points. Yes, software-freedom is damaged in the long run, but there are already others: The failure of accepting systemd as "default" - even from the FSF? The failure of getting involved on coporate management and the toxic waste of capitalism? It's a complete system failure doing this and it seems to me better telling them that this is just the opposite because it is changing the project itself in a whole! It is more work in future to get Gnome "libre" and free from proprietary services. A very sad decision but that's what I've written earlier and it encourages me when updating Hyperbola on the one system left with version 0.2 where I've tried Gnome. It's a pity!

I know what the message is but I think telling "suck it" is not very kind and better to criticize the roadmap itself instead. So after all I think Hyperbola has no further room for Gnome in the repositories. Could be wrong, but the project needs much work when another actual version should be integrated. Time which could better used for other packages. smile I think of creating an issue about this, listing all the non-libre acitivities mentioned here. Of course this is at last a decision of the community and developer-team behind, so it's open for thoughts.


Fair point,  you are right, it is not kind. I just get tired of meglomaniacs.  People who think they know whats best for everyone else... I mean. Although, I understand what I said wasn't kind. So yeah, what you say is wise. Though gnome and kde are both bloated lol.

Seriously bloated. But anyways, thank you for your wisdom.

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

14 (edited by throgh 2019-11-30 10:50:46)

Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

That's one of the best points and very important at all because bloated desktop-environments full with dependencies takes away freedom in the last run. I'm writing this from an installation of Hyperbola 0.2 with KDE Plasma: Running good, but after all it is all the same with Gnome besides that KDE has decided otherwise until now. I'll keep it that way for now - option to migrate in the near future to 0.3 with dwm or draco (what kind of cool desktop-environment, again a BIG THANK YOU you've brought that up here! But Gnome took really just too many sideways in the name of becoming more "open-source" and pragmatic, less freedom orientation and towards principles.

So far my list would be:

  • Bloated with questionable dependencies (including mandatory systemd)

  • Using proprietary services as high risk for freedom and privacy for users

  • Coming up with questionable and vague principles, against software-freedom in a whole

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: Thoughts about Gnome-Desktop: The future of Gnome in the repositories?

After all systemd and distributions based on it just violate the basic rules of software-freedom in general: Just a good example is how to install another INIT-system on Ubuntu here. I'd recommend to try this with an actual installation of Trisquel. The last time I did this I've lost the complete desktop trying to lockout systemd and denying any further installation from the package repositories. Perhaps there are tricks solving this I have not seen, but the major point stays: systemd may use a copyleft license, but is per definition NOT free software and instead is a risk for the freedom of choice especially not to use a software-package. There was, is and will never be a choice when systemd is active and in usage.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!