Galeon, A History

It's isn't as much the features itself, as it is the feeling geeky/power users are being left out and the interface is being dumbed down for the masses. The cleanup is good, very good, I like some of the things I'm seeing. But in general, it seems Gnome is focussing on the masses and corporate accounts, and leaving too many out of its original user base a bit behind. I understand Ximian and friends have to focus on making money, too; I understand that a thousand users have a thousand opinions; but I also understand the feeling -at least my feeling- that features and 'complexity' is being taken away, not only for the sake of re-organization or improvement (which is a good and much needed thing in some respects of the current opensource situation), but also to cater for a much wider audience and in the same time (does this have to be mutually exclusive?) neglecting the very people it all started with.

Next to stability and moral illusions, there are other reasons I really don't like windows. Flexibility. Advanced features. Customization, in such a way, I can myself, even without programming, create an environment that instead of being general dogfood, is a fine-tuned instrument to faciliate my work and solves very specific but very real problems that make my work more hard.

I don't care about blind black-and-white screams for features; for any feature that has ever been implemented, an angry user can be found that will lynch you if you remove it - features can only be added, never taken away, it seems. But behind this lies a very basic feeling that Gnome is headed for a road not completely out of direction, but far enough to warrant a shout.

So, tell me; should more advanced users give up on Gnome, will Gnome gradually but irreversibly head the windows way, cater for Joe Sixpack and Bob Manager only? Because I rather get a *****-off than some political twitching, twisting and turning.

And that is what I see at the base of many of these feature-flames, as you call them.