The Thunar Path

[Andrew Conkling]

On 11/17/05, Don Christensen <djc at cisco.com> wrote:
> Stefan Stuhr wrote:
> > tor, 17 11 2005 kl. 09:25 -0500, skrev aussiefax at charter.net:
> >
> >>After all, It's the user's choice that matters, not
> >>the developers'.
> >
> > Not when the developers works on the project in their free time, for
> > free. Then it's the developers opinion that matters. The developer may
> > like some of the suggestions the users comes with, but it's the
> > developers choice. Then the users may decide that they doesn't like the
> > software the developer make, and they may choose to use another DE/WM,
> > _that's_ their choice.
> >
> > Stefan
> > Not a Xfce developer
>
> And this is especially true with Xfce, where the developers have
> quite often stated that their motivation is to produce a set of
> tools for themselves.  Widespread adoption is a nice secondary
> bonus.  Contrast this with something like Firefox, where gaining
> marketshare appears to be a primary concern.  Not all open source
> projects are motivated in the same ways.

And of course, this is IMO why Firefox and like projects are not as
high-quality as (to continue the analogy) Opera, which is less
motivated by widespread adoption (though not open-source).

In any case, a lot of flamebait in that post, but I think it suffices
to say that the goals of Thunar being what they are, the work is not a
waste of time.  A metadata file manager (I don't like calling it a
type manager) seems like a good idea, but I'm not sure that a general
one is necessary.  I wouldn't want to use an app that sorts my music
in the same way as one that sorts my pictures, for instance.  Those
are two very different and specialized tasks, or so it seems to me.

Ryan: I think this would not have taken such a sour path with the
developers if you would have come to the list with a question rather
than an opinion which seemed to undermine the developers' efforts. 
Just my two cents.

Andrew
Also not a developer

--
http://aconkling.blogspot.com