User talk:Rua/Archives/2014/June

GNOME

Hey there, CodeCat! You just reverted my edit on the GNOME article. You comment that what I removed is "pretty important information and shouldn't just be removed." Did you read my comment accompanying the removal? I think that part 1 of the info ("GNOME is part of the GNU Project") is misleading (GNOME is developed by The GNOME Project, according to the article, not by the GNU project; the referenced page only shows that GNOME happens to be part of the GNU package collection) and that part 2 ("and can be used with various Unix-like operating systems, most notably GNU/Linux") is redundant and too narrow (first paragraph already says: "and targets to be cross-platform, i.e. run on multiple operating systems, its main focus being those based on the Linux kernel"). I hope this makes clear why I decided to remove that paragraph. If you still disagree, please explain in more detail. Thanks! --KommissärMatthäi (talk) 21:58, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

It certainly needs mentioning that GNOME is part of the GNU project. Whether it's actually developed by GNU is not relevant. CodeCat (talk) 22:02, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Could you explain in greater detail why this needs mentioning? I can't find this particular piece of info on gnome.org. If we mention that GNOME is part of the GNU package collection, we would also need to mention that it is part of Debian, Fedora, RHEL, Opensuse etc., which would clearly be beyond the scope of the intro. --KommissärMatthäi (talk) 22:13, 15 June 2014 (UTC) (edited)

@KommissärMatthäi: You misinterpret GNU link that was supporting the claim: it is not about another Linux distro including GNOME, but rather about GNOME's affiliation with GNU project. Actually, initially the GNOME project chose its name as an acronym for GNU Network Object Model Environment. In 2009 there was a mailing list drama around potential departure of GNOME from GNU (though it led nowhere). There are various sources stating that GNOME is part of GNU, eg. this. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 00:30, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, Dmitrij! I was aware that GNOME started off as a GNU initiative. However, since there is a dedicated GNOME project for some time now, this seems to be of rather historical relevance. Concerning a "membership" (however it might be defined), it would be great to have an authoritative source, esp. one that doesn't come from the GNU project itself, as GNU is known to be quite fanatical about attaching their branding to projects [1] [2] [3]. The linux.org article is actually just an older version of the Wikipedia article, which doesn't really get us anywhere. I believe this question by a GNOME member sums it up quite well: "How is 'membership to the GNU project' defined? Was 'FSF membership' meant here maybe? Is there a public document?" As long as these questions are still unanswered, I don't think this piece of info belongs into the introduction. (However, as the paragraph keeps getting re-added, I am certainly not going to start an edit war.) --KommissärMatthäi (talk) 11:37, 16 June 2014 (UTC)