Comments on: Gnome Summit (@MIT)

By: Ted Gould

Ted Gould — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:52:04 +0000

No, as far as I am aware no one has proposed Notify OSD for inclusion in GNOME.

By: seif sallam

seif sallam — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:21:42 +0000

why don’t just FOSS follow Ubuntu’s lead. its obvious that they have a good vision and they are going somewhere with it, and everyone can see that Ubuntu is a new distribution that became the most popular distribution in a little time.

so my advice would be to collaborate with Ubuntu so they can make the next big thing, or just keep that nonsense problems and let Steve Ball laugh at us.

By: Mario

Mario — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:15:18 +0000

“We have (or are really close to) functional free 3D drivers for basically all ATI, Intel, and NVIDIA hardware for the past ten years”

Is that so? Judging by my 2 or 3 years old HP nc6400 laptop, I don’t think that you can count all ATi cards of the last 10 years as “3D supported by fglrx”. The Mobility Radeon X1300 in this laptop lost fglrx support in Jaunty, and the free driver’s 3D performance is insufficient for desktop effects.

Thanks, ATI!

By: Seif Lotfy

Seif Lotfy — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:18:34 +0000

I have a very amateur question but… Did Canonical propose notify-osd for GNOME inclusion yet?

By: jef spaleta

jef spaleta — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:15:50 +0000

In your Apollo analog for FOSS who are the decision-makers who get to make the hard choices as to which technical solution is best for the overall program mission? For Apollo it was central NASA management…and central management is exactly what we do not have in FOSS.

By: ajax

ajax — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:49:32 +0000

I take minor issue with the assertion that lack of 3D support is a real blocker for gnome-shell. We have (or are really close to) functional free 3D drivers for basically all ATI, Intel, and NVIDIA hardware for the past ten years. The AGP slot, you’ll recall, debuted on Pentium II motherboards.

The only reasonably modern graphics chipset where GLX literally can’t be supported in hardware is the AMD Geode. We don’t have a decent driver for many VIA chips, but that seems to be as much about lack of interest as anything else. There’s an argument for modernizing the drivers for some older kit like Matrox and S3 Savage, and I’d be happy to see that happen. But in deployment share terms, we’re talking about 95% coverage in free drivers in the next six months. I have trouble considering that a problem.

By: Jackflap

Jackflap — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:26:23 +0000

It’s a shame that the new notify-osd is a source (or excuse) for bad blood between Ubuntu and Gnome, especially since the notify-osd is one of the best usability improvements Ubuntu has developed.

I absolutely love the fact that I no longer feel the urge to compulsively click every notification that pops up, and can just get on with whatever I’m doing.

By: d0od

d0od — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:13:20 +0000

I’m envious you got to go at all! Being an Ubuntu-boi i’d have felt a bit uncomfortable around such hostility, but do these grieprs not realise that whatever the issues at hand people -choose- to work on Ubuntu? Ubuntu never claims to be the perfect setup for making a distro and kinks are straightened out as you go along. With all of the (imo vital) changes Ubuntu are pushing and bringing to the desktop stack of course not everyone is going to be happy but Ubuntu has to do what’s best for Ubuntu first and foremost or it’s just another pretty Debian derivative with a theme…

K, i’ve gone off on a tangent here. Well done for going though Martin!

By: Martin Owens

Martin Owens — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:04:25 +0000

Does it need to be technical again?

In fact I’ll post a blog entry as a poll.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:59:54 +0000

Mark is actually a woman. There .. I blew the covers on that one. I hope the planet will now get technical again.

PS. In all fairness, Canonical is not really adhering to “upstream first”, but in FOSS you need to waste developer time and implement different things and then let evolution take its course.(The apollo project did the same thing, they had different teams working on the same problems and then picked the best solution. Certainly not cheap or efficient, but it works.)