Please don't save up big rants like these. You can benefit much more from a separate thread for each issue.
By the generally accepted definition of "more work" meaning more keystrokes or more mouse clicks, this is demonstrably not true. Common applications in the launcher bar: one click or keystroke. Occasionally-used applications: two clicks. Rarely-used applications: three clicks and/or a couple keystrokes. Unity gets easier as you use it in two ways - you discover more features, and Zeitgeist moves your most-used applications closer to the top of the search results.
If you don't
like Unity, or you have imprinted on something else, that's okay. You don't have to like it. Nobody will force you to use it, and there are plenty of alternatives. But don't offer this they-are-just-wrong-and-unreasoning ranting. The Ubuntu designers publish their work, ask for feedback, are globally available at the online Ubuntu Developer Summits, and have done a huge amount of real usability research and testing in this field.
The average user
doesn't want to point and click - that's Unity's point. The average user want the machine to be psychic, to adaptively understand what the user wants, and to provide the most common choices first. The point-and-click interface is the
hindrance (and is tough on a tiny phone screen, too); the user wants the application at the end of the process, not the process itself.
It's okay to not like their work. But to reject their work with a rather childish political argument like "it's-merely-their-pet-project" really diminishes your credibility on the topic.
And I don't even use Unity very often. I imprinted on something else, and I still like something else.
Well, have your reported these bugs properly?
Have you helped to confirm other reported bugs?
Have you helped triage bugs so developers can spend time fixing the bugs instead of clerical work?
Have you helped test pre-release software? The developers have
begged for more testing volunteers, on as many platforms as possible.
Have you contributed patches? Updated documentation? Packaged? Backported? Joined a LoCo? Helped other users?
It's not reporting the problem to you. It's reporting the problem back to daisy.ubuntu.com.
You can check the apport logs to see what was reported.
You can check
http://errors.ubuntu.com to see the most common reported problems. The Ubuntu Bug Squad takes those reports very seriously.
That seems like a paying-customer attitude that strongly damages your credibility in this community.
If you are a paying customer, you have the right to complain about a product or ask for a refund.
But you're not a customer of the Ubuntu project. Canonical didn't earn a penny from your purchase price. You're a member of this community, and nobody in this community cares about unconstructive complaints or rants. Instead, we work together to improve it. Constructive suggestions and discussion are always welcome.
Who, exactly, do you expect to do all this additional testing...for free? Volunteers. Community members. The testing team. In other words, us.
I urge you to participate in next week's Ubuntu Developer Summit (
http://summit.ubuntu.com ) and see exactly how Ubuntu gets put together. You may be surprised just how focused and disciplined many teams are, how strong the focus on quality and testing really is, the strategies for better testing, more testing, sustainable testing, better bug reporting, automated bug reporting, and how the feedback process really works (well) in this community.
Ubuntu's quality has
hugely improved in the past few years. System crashes and X crashes are *way* down. Boot is faster, and printing and video are no longer arcane magic. Honestly, given a choice between the system-killing X and print and other bugs we used to have against the rather lightweight missing-text field and other application bugs of today...I'll stick with today's bugs. Maybe you can help us figure out how to test applications more and better before release.
We're open to new ideas and new contributors like you.
Originally Posted by ian-weisser
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