[traverseda]

That gnome doesn't really listen to end user feedback? I think this is a pretty great example: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/244

Patches are available for type-ahead, in particular the gtk-mushrooms fork. If open source is about "scratching your own itch" gnome is making it really hard for developers to do that. There was discussion of burying that features somewhere deep in the gnome registry, all kinds of options, but it's clear that pull requests are not welcome, even if the option is buried deep in some config file somewhere and is only accessible to power users.

That seems to be the case a lot of the time when outsiders try to solve their own problems with a pull request. There's just no room for compromise or for solving your own problems.

[nightski]

Wow that thread was infuriating and I don't even use GNOME. What a tone deaf response from the dev.

[krastanov]

I read through most of the thread and I am very confused by the negative reactions. What was tone deaf in the response!? (I do understand my question is tone deaf by associativity, but I sincerely do not get it)

[cycloptic]

That's only one example and the issue was closed specifically because it conflicts with their UX designs created by a professional designer: https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/tree/mast...

As a point of comparison, you may want to look through all the other merge requests that actually do get accepted, the majority of them do: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/merge_requests?sta...

[traverseda]

That's fine, and I get that gnome is a platform. The problem is that they're forcing their platform's choices on every GTK-3 app, which makes it really annoying for people who use GTK (not gnome) apps but which don't like the Gnome platform.

The problem is that GTK was used as a generic toolkit, and they've added a bunch of weird customization's to make it work better with their platform. That fucked over a lot of people who used that toolkit on non-Gnome platforms, and for non-Gnome uses.

Most people using GTK didn't sign up to be part of the gnome platform. Firefox isn't a gnome app. They (and everyone else) assumed it was being developed as a generic and cross-platform gui toolkit. Bit of a bait and switch there.

The tight integration between gnome (the platform) and GTK (the cross-platform GUI toolkit) seems an awful lot like a betrayal, like taking something that was for everyone and well.. taking it. Making it all about themselves, and burning the commons so other people can't use it. Or at least like a heavy-handed attempt to force people to write Gnome apps instead of GTK apps.

[cycloptic]

I'm confused how that's related, the issue you're talking about is in the file manager, not GTK. I don't believe any of the primary nautilus maintainers are also primary GTK maintainers, at least not anyone in that issue. (Please correct me if I'm wrong about that)

But, since I've said this before, I'll say it again: If the other people who use the toolkit want to have input, they need to contribute more. AFAIK there are zero non-GNOME devs working full time on GTK. I hope that changes, i.e. I hope the other desktops can find funding to send more designers and developers to collaborate with the GNOME people so everyone can have their say. That is the real issue here, I think it's incorrect to suggest that anything was "taken." It's open source, there isn't anyone who's going to take the code away from you unless you blatantly violate the license.

[traverseda]

Maybe your distro patches it, but last I checked typeahead wasn't available in GTK-file-picker. It uses recursive search instead.

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/839

Also: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=748672

The GTK devs were saying that they wanted a flag shared between nautilus and the file picker that would enable/disable typeahead. Unfortunately nautilus refuses to implement that flag, which I think means we're all still relying on forks for that feature.

So you're not really allowed to solve one without solving the other, last I checked.

So yeah, the issues is very much in both, and you can't solve the issue with GTK without solving it in Gnome.

[cycloptic]

>So you're not really allowed to solve one without solving the other

The final comments from the developer directly contradicts this claim:

>I'd be happy to review a merge request that added the ability to disable recursive search in the file chooser using a GSettings option ... I was thinking more along the lines of having a key in the file chooser settings schema that would be observed by Nautilus.

The idea there is that the key should be in a standard location read by nautilus (or some other GTK file manager) if it also decides to implement that feature. Edit: I also should note that it appears there was not even initial consensus about this, the other GTK developer seemed to be skeptical at first.

[turminal]

Their are some striking similarities between how systemd and Gnome interact with the community. Disregard for portability, feature creep, the way they attempt to monopolize their respective 'markets' and the way they treat everyone that disagrees. Those are all worrying. And the company behind systemd and with significant stakes in gnome (RedHat) recently showed how well they treat open source projects that stop being valuable for them as a company.

[cyberax]

That's entirely unfair. We contributed a couple of changes to systemd and they went through without problems.

systemd does have a very opinionated code style, but that's not much different from (say) Linux kernel.

[souprock]

It seems that "professional designer" means a person who makes changes that are generally bad. Once the UI is perfected, it must continue to change (and thereby become non-perfect) because how else would customers know that they got a new product?

If the professional designer in question really is expected to do something different, such as make usable software, then a review of job performance is sorely needed.

[not_knuth]

I was only referring to the fact that Gnome developers get such a bad rap for being unfriendly, as the GGP stated.

The link was an interesting read eitherway and I can absolutely understand where the frustration comes from. The users' comments just flew over the developers' heads. Nonetheless it looks more like a breakdown in communication than willfully ignoring with deceitful intentions on the part of the developers in my opinion.

[traverseda]

There are a lot of issues like that. After a certain point a pattern emerges. I don't have time to find a big list of historical issues. Here are some quick links though.

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/839

Look at why LXDE switched from GTK to QT.

Take a look at when a bunch of Gnome developers decided theming wasn't okay (as opposed to fixing themes): https://stopthemingmy.app/

Take a look at this bug-request on the transmission torrent client: https://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/3685

> I guess you have to decide if you are a GNOME app, an Ubuntu app, or an XFCE app unfortunately.

Take a look at the whole history of client-side decorators, particularly the suggestion that every SDL-based app should implement their own CSD support: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217#note_3552...

There's plenty there if you just look around.

[cycloptic]

I said this in a sibling comment but, there are also plenty of examples of feature requests that were not rejected:

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests?state...

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/merge_requests?state=me...

If you're going to look at the pattern of historically rejected requests, please also consider looking at the pattern of requests that were accepted.

If you'd like, I can give you a more thorough explanation as to what is actually happening in any of those issues you've linked.

[traverseda]

Almost none of those are feature requests. I mean yes, the gnome developers do write code, and that code does get merged in. I don't understand what you're trying to prove by pointing that out.

As you can see Gnome is mostly a redhat project these days: https://hpjansson.org/blag/2020/12/16/on-the-graying-of-gnom...

It's not surprising that things get merged when they come from redhat-affiliated developers.

[cycloptic]

The best way in any open source project to make sure a feature is implemented, is to write it yourself and submit a merge request. I don't think any open source desktop is special in this regard, the same rules apply. I am not sure what you're trying to point out by saying that some developers work for Red Hat, the same rules apply to them. If they want features implemented, they write the code and they submit it upstream. What else should happen here? Should they just stop submitting patches and let upstream stagnate?

[traverseda]

>the same rules apply to them

I don't think so. Gnome seems like a bit of an old boys club. I think the post I linked backs that up.