Sorry, I just don't think this is right. Listen - back in the early 90's, I was using DOS apps. Lotus, WP, that db app, I forget the name, the graphics presentation app - "Harvard graphics?" Win was around in pre 3.0 - and way ugly. Win 3 started to get traction.
WHY? Because all the rest of those guys, as smart as they all were, just "didn't get it". We KNOW this is true, because the history of the marketplace is VERY clear on this! Sure, MS used nasty and unfair marketing, but, just like Lance Armstrong (I am NOT a fan - I have been an unfan of Lance for many years, but he did win, and he won by cheating, just like Microsoft), they didn't start with a donkey (he also had to be close to the top echelon of riders for the cheating to work)! If all those DOS mfrs had gotten together and said "Ok, we will ALL use these Fkey meanings, and these keyboard shortcuts" - so that they were standardized - Windows might never have happened. But they didn't. They wouldn't. I wrote letters to them, back then, about this. The whole reason Windows worked, and got bought by the end-user - was because it was A) standardized, and B) you could figure it out by cruising around with the mouse.
In the meantime, and in between these times, we've had lots of people shouting "it should be this way!" and other people shouting "it should be that way!" And, now Ubuntu is betting that Unity is the "It should be that way!" for the future. Well, look at the usage stats. Where does unity stack up compared to where Ubuntu was before Unity? Where does gnome3 stack up compared to where it was as gnome2? Uhhh- oooh. Those stats are down, aren't they.
Hmmm, maybe time to rethink?
Ok, for you guys saying MATE is dead because of GTK3? You're missing the point. The end-user doesn't give a good poop about GTK3. Now, maybe cinammon, which is the gnome3 de with a gnome2 interface, may become the next big thing. Might happen. But right now, it isn't.
Which tells me that gnome missed the boat. And so does Unity. Afaic, unity is looking at the same operational dynamics in the user environment that are part of what drove gnome 3. Afaic, they both fail. Fine for a smart phone - actually preferable there - but not ok to try and make that environment work on the de. And usage stats are bearing this out.
You know, maybe changing the paradigm, a la gnome3 or unity, isn't the best idea. Maybe those big brains at the top need to go back to listening school, and then go to the market and listen. We need to respect what has been learned before - and Win XP and 7 DO represent learning about the marketplace, no matter how much we want to deny it. Menus work. They work because the users can figure them out. An anonymous search block with no guidance may NOT work. Sure, if you want Word or the equivalent, you'll get a hit. But what about when you want to compare the contents of two directories? What do you search on? Is it clear enough now?
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