Published at LXer:

According to some within the GNOME team, the team and the GNOME product are falling apart. By alienating the people that were loyal dedicated users they have begun a downward spiral into the abyss. What was once a respectable, reputable product now a garbage salad that no one wants and no-one uses.

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Gnome 3 is a trainwreck. I had so much hope as a Gnome 2.x user that the new offering would mature and lose it's rough edges but, sadly it's pretty dire still IMHO. Gnome is now a distant memory for me, XFCE is the new Gnome - long may common sense and straightforward design reign...

They have needed longer than a year to actually realize that a large part of their userbase didn't like the changes? I can't believe that, even if they are flying that high they should have heard the outcry.

It's the case of the user is dumb and they know best - wrong!

This version of Gnome will have to change radically before I go back to it again. Just goes to prove the old saying - "don't fix what isn't broke"

I'm sure that the gnome people have known about the outcry for a long time now. Its been, what, a year since Torvalds called gnome 3 a 'unholy mess'?

IMO the a lot of the problem is the 'you dont need this, or that, we know better than you' attitude.

Its not like gnome 3 is the only DE/interface with that problem. Unity also has the same problems. IMO the same thought process and design logic that has driven gnome 3 has also driven unity. The difference is that canonical employees get paid to say how wonderful unity is (and parts of the 'ubuntu community' are censored for anti-unity comments). Gnome 3 is AFAIK more driven by unpaid volunteers than unity, and gnome doesnt have the same degree of control of the developers or the community that canonical has.

Both Unity and Gnome wanted a slice of the mobile market but have got there far too late. Having said that, Ubuntu still has an outside chance though. This has all come at a cost of their core user base, the people that stood behind them - when you poop on your loyal users you end up with no users. I fear Gnome may fade slowly into obscurity unless they radically change their mindset and/or their core development team.