Fallback mode to disappear - DE brainstorming
The fallback mode, which is what the default Trisquel DE is based upon, is to disappear in the next GNOME releases:
https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2012-November/msg00009.html
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20121112
So what do you think Trisquel should plan on using as default desktop in future releases?
XFCE?
Unity?
KDE?
GNOME-shell?
MATE?
Cinnamon?
Other?...
I didn't mention LXDE since we already have Trisquel-Mini and there's no problem with that.
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I don't know, but why can't you ask in the right place?
On 11/12/2012 09:15 AM, name at domain wrote:
> The fallback mode, which is what the default Trisquel DE is based upon,
> is to disappear in the next GNOME releases:
>
> https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode
>
> https://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2012-November/msg00009.html
>
> http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20121112
>
> So what do you think Trisquel should plan on using as default desktop in
> future releases?
>
> XFCE?
> Unity?
> KDE?
> GNOME-shell?
> MATE?
> Cinnamon?
> Other?...
>
> I didn't mention LXDE since we already have Trisquel-Mini and there's no
> problem with that.
>
>
I am a member!
OOPS, I thought it was posted to the wrong list, based on the subject
line; my apologies!
Since LXDE's accessibility is coming along nicely, maybe Trisquel 7 can
move to that, instead of Fallback? When the LXDE applet panel becomes
accessible, I should try doing a Trisquel Mini setup, and add what is
necessary for accessibility support. Would a switch to LXDE also
address the freedom concerns that keep GNOME Shell from being the default?
Cheers,
Dave H.
On 11/12/2012 09:15 AM, name at domain wrote:
> The fallback mode, which is what the default Trisquel DE is based upon,
> is to disappear in the next GNOME releases:
>
> https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode
>
> https://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2012-November/msg00009.html
>
> http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20121112
>
> So what do you think Trisquel should plan on using as default desktop in
> future releases?
>
> XFCE?
> Unity?
> KDE?
> GNOME-shell?
> MATE?
> Cinnamon?
> Other?...
>
> I didn't mention LXDE since we already have Trisquel-Mini and there's no
> problem with that.
>
>
I think that there is only 2 viable solutions for Trisquel:
1 - Gnome-Shell (the problem is that it may require a lot of work and Rubén is alone on this so it may not be a good solution for now).
2 - Mate (this would be the best solution because Ruben could re-use everything from all the old versions of Trisquel based on Gnome 2 and upgrade them with time.
Why those two solutions only? What about LXDE, Cinnamon, KDE, Xfce, etc.?
Because of the logic behind Ubuntu itself. If Trisquel is based on Ubuntu and fallows the same development then it should use the same DE no ? After that we already have Xfce for the mini, but yes this could be a good choice to unify te versions. LXDE is not apropriate (even if I love it) because of the lack of features and the hard work to make them work nicely (without talking about all the changes ruben has already did to gnome itself in Trisquel). Cinnamon is not very stable and it is horrible in big screens with huge resolutions (I know it by experience) but it can be solved indeed. As for KDE, it think that it could be a wise choice, but there is a problem, and the problem is, if Ruben doesn't choose the "good" default configurations, then you will have a slow Trisquel that could be rejected by the FSF for their personal use (and many of the users here as well), because KDE is so beautiful and so maniable that any mistake and any wrong configuration could lead to a broke and slow DE (I also know it by experience).
My words are not those of Ruben, RMS etc.. it is only my ideas (since it is a brainstorm) on how to solve this problem while in the same time not doing the mistake to give more work to ruben that's all ^_^
Le 2012-11-12 12:21, name at domain a écrit :
> Because of the logic behind Ubuntu itself. If Trisquel is based on
> Ubuntu and fallows the same development then it should use the same
> DE no ?
But Ubuntu's DE is Unity, not Gnome-shell nor MATE, so I'm not sure I get your point here.
> After that we already have Xfce for the mini, but yes this
> could be a good choice to unify te versions. LXDE is not apropriate
> (even if I love it) because of the lack of features and the hard work
> to make them work nicely (without talking about all the changes ruben
> has already did to gnome itself in Trisquel).
Trisquel-Mini uses LXDE, not Xfce.
Ubuntu is Unity and Ubuntu Class, but each of the 2 are based on Gnome Fallback (as well as Trisquel's official DE). So they will have to change as well.
As for Trisquel Mini, you are totally right :S.. My apologies I thought it was XFCE (where did this idea came from ?....).
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No worries; confusing LXDE and XFCE is easy; I think they even look
similar? Maybe future Trisquel releases should follow Lubuntu instead
of the main branch? If we want to do a GNOME-Shell version, isn't there
some way to do what requires hardware accelleration in free software?
Shell, as-is, happens to work on this machine; am lucky, I guess; LOL.
Even though Shell works, I prefer something leaner, and would likely
go to LXDE if I had to make a switch.
Cheers,
Dave Hunt
On 11/12/2012 02:36 PM, name at domain wrote:
> Ubuntu is Unity and Ubuntu Class, but each of the 2 are based on Gnome
> Fallback (as well as Trisquel's official DE). So they will have to
> change as well.
>
> As for Trisquel Mini, you are totally right :S.. My apologies I thought
> it was XFCE (where did this idea came from ?....).
I just think that LXDE is not appropriated for new users and enterprises... I mean, yes it is good, stable etc.. etc..., but we already ave problems making people switch from a non-free Gnu/Linux distribution to Trisquel (and I'm not even talking about Windows or Mac to Trisquel), so proposing a LXDE desktop wouldn't be a shot in the foot in that direction ?
I mean, even the Trisquel's mini depends already on a lot of Gnome packages. So maybe the solution is not there (in my opinion).
It would be very interesting tho, to see what Ruben can make with a lot of creativity, time, and Xfce :D
Trisquel being based upon Ubuntu does not mean a new Trisquel version starts with the related Ubuntu ISO. It only means it starts with the related Ubuntu repository. Ubuntu's default choices does not matter much (they only slightly matter because those packages are likely to be more thoroughly tested).
As far as I can see on http://devel.trisquel.info/makeiso/iso/ the next Trisquel 6.0 Toutatis will have a KDE edition (triskel) and an LXDE edition (trisquel-mini) in addition to the GNOME version (trisquel).
I do not see the problem of running GNOME software on top of an LXDE or Xfce desktop. All those desktops use the GTK toolkit: there is no real integration issue.
Thanks to Fedora's work on running GNOME Shell with a software 3D acceleration, there may not be any problem with this choice either.
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I don´t know how much work is needed in order to use Xfce, but I
certainly hope is a viable option and Trisquel end up moving in that
direction. There are several reasons, stability, ease of use,
configurable options and yes, for selfish reasons :), because It happen
to be my favorite DE and also presently works nicely with Brigantia.
Regards
Apparently Ubuntu 13.04 will use GNOME 3.6. Fallback mode will disappear in GNOME 3.8, so this will probably affect Trisquel 7.0 (based on Ubuntu 13.10, assuming Trisquel continues tracking Ubuntu).
I don't know what Ruben's vision for Trisquel is, so I suppose it depends on that. Because of LLVMpipe, Ruben might consider GNOME Shell as a replacement for Fallback mode. But if he wants to stick with the Trisquel theme then Trisquel might have to go elsewhere.
I've never used LXDE before, but I've seen screenshots of Trisquel Mini and they look good! I've used GNOME 2 and Xfce, so either of those (MATE for GNOME 2, of course) would be okay for me as well.
But then we have another problem... Nautilus. Nautilus is reversing the meaning of software improvement by removing a lot of important features (like the split folders with F3 and others). Ubuntu as already planned to use Nautilus from 3.4 instead of Nautilus 3.6 but will it stay that way longer ?
I mean, should really Ruben only use the Ubuntu repositories ? Even if I know that it is a lot of work to create something different.
LLVMpipe is just horrible to use with Unity, but is somewhat okay to use it (on a Dual Core Intel E5200) with Gnome-Shell although it is not the future and it isn't an alternative for a lot of people.
In another point, the Ubuntu team already saw and admitted that is a need of a non 3D environment since a lot of users still don't have the required equipment, so maybe we should see what decisions whey will make (even if, in the last times they have been going through some weird directions with Ubuntu :s..)
> But then we have another problem... Nautilus. Nautilus is reversing the meaning of software improvement by removing a lot of important features (like the split folders with F3 and others). Ubuntu as already planned to use Nautilus from 3.4 instead of Nautilus 3.6 but will it stay that way longer ?
With regards to Nautilus, I've never used those features, but I'm sure other people (like yourself) use them.
I'm not sure if these instructions work for changing your File Manager in GNOME 3 fallback mode:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DefaultFileManager
But I think Ubuntu objected to those changes, so I would be interested in seeing if they follow GNOME with Nautilus or not.
> I mean, should really Ruben only use the Ubuntu repositories ? Even if I know that it is a lot of work to create something different.
Well he already does with Lubuntu and Trisquel Mini. Maybe he might just make Trisquel Mini the default/only Trisquel, or use another *buntu for Trisquel.
> LLVMpipe is just horrible to use with Unity, but is somewhat okay to use it (on a Dual Core Intel E5200) with Gnome-Shell although it is not the future and it isn't an alternative for a lot of people.
I think if it ends up being that LLVMpipe is not good enough then hopefully Ruben would look at doing something different.
> In another point, the Ubuntu team already saw and admitted that is a need of a non 3D environment since a lot of users still don't have the required equipment, so maybe we should see what decisions whey will make (even if, in the last times they have been going through some weird directions with Ubuntu :s..)
+1, maybe best thing for now is to wait and see what happens...
I would discard xfce, because is similar to lxde (trisquel mini).
Being trisquel oriented to a regular user I think gnome-shell and unity are the best options. Both have the problem of 3d acceleration and I don't know how they support screen readers, which is a must in trisquel.
I'm afraid we will have to wait to see if gnome-shell can be run with more free friendly graphic cards than nowadays. I would like gnome-shell to be the default user interface in trisquel.
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In 3.4.2, and later, the GNOME Shell is quite usable with the Orca
screen reader and magnification. There is a beta of the Sonar
GNU/Linux, based on Lubuntu, which is almost ready, where accessibility
with the Orca is concerned.
-Dave H.
On 11/12/2012 04:57 PM, name at domain wrote:
> I would discard xfce, because is similar to lxde (trisquel mini).
>
> Being trisquel oriented to a regular user I think gnome-shell and unity
> are the best options. Both have the problem of 3d acceleration and I
> don't know how they support screen readers, which is a must in trisquel.
>
> I'm afraid we will have to wait to see if gnome-shell can be run with
> more free friendly graphic cards than nowadays. I would like gnome-shell
> to be the default user interface in trisquel.
> I'm afraid we will have to wait to see if gnome-shell can be run with more free friendly graphic cards than nowadays.
+1.
> I would discard xfce, because is similar to lxde (trisquel mini).
Maybe not, because Xfce and Xfwm supports GTK+v2 themes which would make porting the Trisquel theme easier.
Then again, having LXDE for both Trisquel and Trisquel Mini might make things easier for Ruben to maintain.
Anyway, this change is probably a long way off so we can only provide input and then wait and see what happens...
The one problem I have with both Xfce and LXDE is they don't ship with an easy way to edit the menus. It's pretty minor, though.
Honestly, I think an Xfce edition would be a perfectly good idea. It's similar to LXDE, sure, but they're not exactly the same. In particular, I personally think the way Xfce is configured is a lot more intuitive and novice-friendly than the way LXDE is configured.
Has GNOME Shell gotten more configuration options? The only two things that I particularly didn't like about it was having to drag the mouse all the way across the screen so much (because the menu takes up the whole screen), which is incredibly tedious, and that the menu opens and closes instantly whenever you happen to move the mouse to the top-left corner (which is annoying).
I actually feel I am much more efficient with GNOME Shell than I used to be with GNOME Panel: one key to enter the Shell and then you can search windows, applications and files (Nautilus' favourites and recent files) just typing. No mouse involved. You may also be interested in knowing the default keybindings and define some more in the keyboard settings.
I'd love to see Trisquel with Cinnamon.
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How about LXDE with Compiz? that is what knoppix uses on its live CD.
As far as I heard gnome 3 is fully scriptable. Kinda like emacs is the comparison I heard in faif podcast.
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Another distro I follow is working on this; I tried it briefly and find
the lx-panel still needs some work, for my purposes. I think they're
going with a combination of LXDE and GNOME Panel as a quick fix. Not
sure I like this kind of mixing in a production-ready distro, but it
looks promising.
Cheers,
Dave H.
On 11/13/2012 11:22 AM, name at domain wrote:
> How about LXDE with Compiz? that is what knoppix uses on its live CD.
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I'm not sure how concerned people are with getting security updates although Canonical does not maintain a lot of the software in the Ubuntu repositories. Sticking to stuff Canonical maintains is probably ideal or maybe switching to Linux Mint. I don't think that would cause any kind of delay. Linux Mint is quick to release compared to Trisquel. However I don't know what Linux Mint's stance is in regards to security updates. It may not help at all.
As others have mentioned having a version with accesability support is also important.
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Switching to Mate or Cinamin is out; neither has accessibility support.
GNOME Shell and Fallback have accessibility support, with
magnification provided by Shell Magnifier and Compiz, respectively.
Trisquel 6 is to use metacity when accessibility is turned on. I've
briefly run the latest Trisquel 6 (12-November), and find that Orca
screen reader works fine; cannot test the magnification, high-contrast,
inverse, or on-screen keyboard.
Thanks for your interest in the accessibility,
Dave
By the time fallback dies off, MATE would hopefully be mature enough to use full time. I use it once in a while and still find bugs and errors in daily use.
Really? I never saw any bugs in MATE back when I used Linux Mint 12. Just annoyance in Linux Mint 12 because of either Nautilus or Caja being used depending on the situation.
I've had issues where it didn't load theme after login but if I logged out and back in, the theme would load and didn't get a mate-settings-daemon error.
Sorry to dig up a (slightly) old thread but this may be of interest:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnome.release-team/1526
Apparently GNOME will be maintaining a number of extensions that will emulate the traditional GNOME 2 interface, in GNOME 3 Shell. That way they don't have to maintain separate codebases (which means less bugs).
That seems like a sensible solution, as long as GNOME 3 Shell works fine for users without 3D acceleration.
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"That seems like a sensible solution, as long as GNOME 3 Shell works fine for users without 3D acceleration."
Maybe. I hope so at least, but if I recall, GNOME 3 Shell requires 3D acceleration. Correct me if I am wrong.
More than a year ago, the Fedora project worked on a software 3D acceleration for GNOME Shell. It has been included upstream (correct me if I am wrong).
Yes it is the LLVMpipe and it's quite good on Gnome-shell if you have a goo CPU, but it is absolutely horrible with Unity :s..
I'm quite keen on LXDE as I used it for quite a while on a distro I used to use and found it very easy and logical; my only reservation would be that at one point it did seem to be struggling a little with lack of developer support, though I don't know how valid that impression was.
It really is a lovely desktop and deserves support.
Gnome Shell has worked a long time the best with FREEDOM FRIENDLY graphics, that is Intel Graphics, which have Free Drivers developed mainly by Intel.
Period.
name at domain writes:
> Gnome Shell has worked a long time the best with FREEDOM FRIENDLY
> graphics, that is Intel Graphics, which have Free Drivers developed
> mainly by Intel.
>
> Period.
What about the rest? My desktop machine that I am currently not using
lacks 3D. My laptop (Thinkapd X60), which is my daily machine since few
months has Intel card and so what? As lucky and grateful we should be
for such hardware, these cards are only available on laptops. I think
they are not mainstream. Correct me if I am wrong.
Before the software rendering effort developed by the Fedora project,
Gnome Shell was unusable in almost the entire free software ecosystem
without proprietary software for the 3D rendering part. My opinion is
that requiring 3D, especially knowing the state of the drivers and
support in terms of free software and freedom, it was wrong decision
made by GNOME (Shell). Especially for a GNU package, because don't
forget that the G in GNOME stands for GNU. I personally discovered too
late about this issue. Honestly, I feel a little bit betrayed.
A person cannot always buy new hardware and is not able to replace it in
all cases. So, excuse me, but it is not simply period. I personally will
keep nagging about this issue. It is simply wrong to demand 3D for the
purpose to just move some windows, show shiny things and eye-candy, and
do cool/"cool" stuff in the core of a GUI, without being able to stop
it. Wrong wrong wrong. Wrong!
"I'm afraid we will have to wait to see if gnome-shell can be run with more free friendly graphic cards than nowadays."
I commented that. There is only Intel doing Freedom Friendly graphics, and Gnome Shell has run very well since version 3.0 with Intel Graphics.
The fact that people buy shit chips requiring proprietary drivers should never limit what Gnome does. There were Intel Graphics with free drivers developed by intel (with no proprietary drivers even available), and Gnome Shell worked perfectly with them.
Many mainstream people want eye candy. However, Gnome Shell is not just eye candy. It is original design and not a redo of Windows 95. No offence to Trisquel, but its desktop is Windows 7 redo, though, Trisquel had it before Windows 7. That might be fine for many, especially for Windows users.
For me it is not fine because I enjoyed Gnome Shell right away when I used it first time. And the more I have used it, the more I like it. It is fluid, clear, efficient, and enjoyable user experience for me.
So, now as I use Toutatis, which have funny dependency conflicts making Gnome Shell uninstallable without hacking, I can only curse what 1900 sucky design desktop in Toutatis I have to use. It looks darn ugly, it is slow and cumbersome to use, it requires precision guided mouse clicking, urgh, it just suck so big time it is unbeliavable I use it. If I would not care of freedom I could as well use windows -_-
Anyway, I understand 3D acceleration problems people are having, and in my opinion a more traditional default desktop for Trisquel could be better for other reasons too. I will just install Gnome Shell when I can do it normally, so not defaulting to Gnome Shell is in my opinion a very good decision.
What would be the best traditional compromise desktop for Trisquel I can not tell. I have installed Gnome Shell to everyone except my aunt. For my aunt I did not install it because I predict she would totally freak out of it. The rest have enjoyed it a lot, and a 7 years old girl used it without problems, actually it was easier for her to use than traditional 95 legacy desktop.
Haha, what a rant I wrote.
Have a good weekend and lets all be glad there is choise.
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I at least partially agree that we should not let the lack of free graphics drivers for some cards determine the route taken. However I think that the lack of free drivers for older systems still in good order should be taken into consideration.
I think the best solution to this problem is to simply point people to the Trisquel 6 release as being the last release which is going to support hardware without 3d acceleration. The reason for this is because it is a long term support release. You can upgrade to it and get about 3 more years out of the systems which should put every non-3d supported graphics card beyond its usefulness point for the majority of users.
However I'm not entirely sure that is a good idea either because the goal of the distribution is to give users a free environment to work in. Which means users with ATI graphics chipsets and possibly those with NVIDIA graphics chips would not be able to move to free software as easily. Prioritizing pretty over making it easier to switch is not in line with the goals of the project.
I do believe that there is still an argument though for a 3d accelerated version and not allowing non-free proponents to derail the distribution from moving forward. This might be an example of something that should be presented as a fund raiser.
If a certain amount can be raised (say $5,000 USD) then work will go into supporting a 3d and non-3d version. If people really want this badly enough it will happen. If not you can point to it and say “not enough people are willing to invest in it to make it happen”. It is the fairest compromise I can think of. And yes- I would like to see a 3d accelerated version. It gives people a reason to buy free software compatible hardware.
name at domain writes:
> The fact that people buy shit chips requiring proprietary drivers
> should never limit what Gnome does.
True, but still an option, a way to stop 3D was the right way to do it.
> Many mainstream people want eye candy. However, Gnome Shell is not
> just eye candy.
They have the right to do so. I'm not saying eye candy is wrong, but
making it the core and rely on non-free software in most hardware
without being able to stop the 3D in the core is wrong for me. I can not
event comprehend how they make such compromise.
> It is original design and not a redo of Windows 95. No
> offence to Trisquel, but its desktop is Windows 7 redo, though,
> Trisquel had it before Windows 7. That might be fine for many,
> especially for Windows users.
Speaking of which, has anybody seen Windows 8? I had a chance to see it
when somebody showed it off to me. It seems a lot like GNOME Shell for
some features. It is not clear which was the original idea, but I don't
really care.
>
> For me it is not fine because I enjoyed Gnome Shell right away when I
> used it first time. And the more I have used it, the more I like
> it. It is fluid, clear, efficient, and enjoyable user experience for
> me.
My experience is mainly with older versions. It seamed buggy at the
time. Have in mind that I am the main translator of GNOME Shell in
Bulgarian. I'm not just ill speaking. Still trying to compile the latest
stable version, 3.6 with JHBuild and test it for my final conclusion. I
simply don't want to give up GNOME, which I'm using since 2005, but it
is just forcing me to do so.
You can find Intel Graphics in Desktops too. They used to be a chip on the motherboard, but the current generations has been integrated to the CPU. So, if you buy the right Intel CPU you get Intel Graphics too.
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From what I've seen pretty much all systems with Intel CPUs have the Intel graphics now. It is like "Trusted Computing". It's getting near impossible to get CPUs without it in the newer generation processors. The Ultrabook models you can get it without the technology although the third generation Intel CPUs for laptops (non-thin models) don't have any without in the i7 lineup.
name at domain writes:
> You can find Intel Graphics in Desktops too. They used to be a chip on
> the motherboard, but the current generations has been integrated to
> the CPU. So, if you buy the right Intel CPU you get Intel Graphics
> too.
I prefer AMD, because from what I've read trough the years I have the
impression, they are generally more free software friendly, by providing
technical information. I'm excluding the ATI and card division, although
they provided information for that too except for the 3D rendering. For
instance AMD is very helpful in the Coreboot project, the effort for
free software BIOS. Intel on the other hand I hear are going completely
in the opposite direction and invention lock-down mechanisms on BIOS
level and does not contribute. Supporting AMD has another potential
benefit - it prevents Intel from becoming a monopolist. My personal
hardware buying guide has a weighting mechanism that has several
components and compromises. 3D was generaly not mandatory before GNOME
Shell.
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The truth is it all depends on what companies think will benefit them in any given area. It is people like us who convince them of that. What you find is AMD thinks assisting coreboot will help them win in the server arena. Rightly so. There are many things you can do with coreboot that make administration easier. AMD doesn't really care about the freedom bit though beyond it achieving an advantage.
Intel is the same way. Intel's graphics chipsets are free only because they have no advantage to lose by opening up the specifications. ATI and NVIDIA outperform Intel even at the low end. Intel is catching up though. However it's still nothing to brag about. The Intel advantage with its chipsets is that companies can better develop for them, operating systems like GNU/Linux can better take advantage of the hardware, and most importantly offer better support for it, etc.
The advantage to our hardware (ThinkPenguin) is not necessarily it being able to out perform every other product on the market. I'm sure our hardware doesn't in many cases. Its advantage is the hardware works better. In many cases it outperforms the equivalent in proprietary environments or offers additional features thanks to the ability of any developer being able to contribute. It's not having to deal with infections, not having to worry about that upgrade breaking support for your printer, not having to get hit every time Microsoft decides to do something really stupid (think of things like the introduction of “ribbons” in MS Office 2007, or tiles in MS Windows 8). While in GNU/Linux these stupid things happen too the difference is it's much more adaptable. Where a company decides to abandon software (think Oracle with OpenOffice) forks are created (LibreOffice). Think Linux Mint with Ubuntu (sort of anyway-two projects developed to create an alternative desktop environment).
Yea- I kind of went off there a bit. But the idea remains the same. Ensuring proper support enables you to make sure that free software runs and you can take advantage of it.
name at domain writes:
> The truth is it all depends on what companies think will benefit them
> in any given area. … AMD thinks assisting coreboot will help them win
> in the server arena. … AMD doesn't really care about the freedom bit
> though beyond it achieving an advantage.
>
> Intel is the same way. Intel's graphics chipsets are free only because
> they have no advantage to lose by opening up the specifications.
Of course. They do it because they have their reasons. I see them as
free software and freedom friendly just out of my viewpoint and
criteria.
I will just move to KDE/Qt because of their awesome software, namely Cantor, KAlgebra, LibreCAD, VLC, Minitube, K3B, Kdenlive, Step, Gluon, Marble, Stellarium, KStars, and some others which do not have a gtk alternative.
People are clearly voicing their interest in an alternative de than what is currently offered. Will Ruben listen to us or do whatever he wants? History shows he favors the later.
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Which is perfectly legitimate, I think. I don't think users necessarily have a right to determine the direction of a distro. It may be wise for a developer to listen to the needs/wants of a user base, but it is not a moral responsibility.
I know that's cheap advice for me because I am an Openbox user and this discussion largely doesn't apply to me. (Smiles warmly) However, I am interested in this discussion because I'm trying to encourage family members and friends to try out this distro and see if it works for them. I'd like to see what I'm working with.
Frankly I think the latter is generally the better option in many cases; democracy is a nice idea but can end up resulting in a complete mess; he's the one doing the work after all, if people want something different they are welcome to use another distribution, or perhaps pay him to do some work for them!
It's an interesting case I think, with Free Software in general; there's a conflict between democracy and meritocracy that can be quite crippling.
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There is no reason you can't get the features you want. It's a matter of contributing. The people who are contributing are getting what they want. There just aren't that many contributors.
Multiply the number of licensees for just about any non-free program and then compare that to the number of contributors to free software applications. The amount of money is staggering for one and almost non-existent for that other.