[brusch]

Gnome3 is a major update of Gnome2. They've replaced many aging libraries with their new counterparts. It includes 3d graphics (tasteful in my opinion), have dynamic workspaces and I really like the function when you're pushing the super key (windows key). The most important function is that it hardly gets in my way and I had to install less things to get the functions I really like (super - start typing to start an application, transparency...). I had to install GnomeDo and configure Compiz Fusion to get this in Gnome2 (and I still couldn't use super alone for this function). With GNOME3 I hardly every click with the mouse to start an application. I can't say anything about web (their browser) - cause I'm still using Firefox.

I think it is always hard, but sometimes open source projects have to make a cut to take a step in the right direction (and yes - some of the configuration stuff is hidden in Gnome3 and this really sucks). There are rough edges - but I think it's bold and good that they've made this step.

[inthewind]

As I said, I've used it. But it doesn't really give me much back (apart from the headache of rendering my computer useless.) Modern libraries (!?!), and 3D graphics and window transparancies isn't really a game changer. They uttered something about having a semantic desktop at first, but those ideas fell from the wayside. Synapse and Xfce give me easy application launch, I find it less jarring also. I hate that transition in Windows 8. I can get by with Gnome 3 though (when it works,) it's usable.

You can't even configure the appearance of your apps (colour scheme etc) that easily in Gnome 3, it was pretty sucky in Gnome 2. This was pretty much customisable in Windows 98!

Anyway you didn't rise my challenge of trying to summarise what Gnome 3 is! But thanks nonetheless.