quim: if the project (whatever that means) wants to adopt a vision statement, it should be ‘make free software the primary computer interface of the masses’. I think Maemo, OLPC, and Web 2.0 are teaching us that there will be no One True Interface; the foundation should instead seek to encourage many interfaces, for different, hopefully well-defined audiences, with as much shared infrastructure as is reasonably possible. I assume some of those interfaces will necessarily be experimental and forward seeking; others, like 2.x, will be conservative and aim for refinement over innovation. And I hope some day those will be obsolete; GNOME Z will be wildly popular, and we can start on the next cycle of innovation.

I don’t think you can get more specific than that until a leader goes ahead and leads by doing, experimenting with and then creating a real vision.

Maybe what I’m missing is just a statement, an agreed statement about how the GNOME project feels about its present and near future. If we are happy improving the 2.X series until reaching perfection, let’s make this clear. If we are inviting fresher approaches to challenge the current GNOME desktop metaphor, let’s make this clear. If we think web integration is a missing piece that is going to make the new/free/social desktop rock, let’s make this clear. Sending mixed messages like “Be part of GNOME 3.0″ yesterday and “It’s just a version number” today help nobody (I assume my part of responsibility in this and I’m learning thanks to these posts and comments).

It’s difficult to challenge a postmodernist that will answer “well, depends” or “who knows, let’s see” about anything you say or make. This postmodernist could be GNOME today. If instead we position ourselves about some basic points we won’t be probably designing our innovative future, but this definition will help others to come up with redefinitions.

This makes me think that Kathy’s analisys is based on a snapshot, it misses the fact that innovation comes through waves and generations. A boring and immobilist generation can be a great indirect promoter of a new and revolutionary wave & generation.

I’m not so sure just how tied to the web 2.0 stuff the desktop needs to be. Anything that’s a more “intense” use of the desktop like art or music might be too much… unless you could just skin sites and apps with the same skin (XUL?) so that the web feels like a coherent part of the desktop experience.

If OLPC is for education and GNOME 2 is for the corporate desktop (optimized for office work)
GNOME NG should be for the network.

Keeping with the wave of Web 2.0, social production, networking society, P2P and decentralization produce a system optimzed for this audience.

I still believe that the best chance for GNOME - or any other competitive desktop - to achieve mainstream recognition is to radically embrace the network. Take widgets one step further, and make del.icio.us, Flickr, Gmail, or anything else with an API a part of the desktop, not just a plugin. The del.icio.us Firefox bookmarks replacement hints at this, imperfectly.

GNOME can do this without worrying about competitive angles, whereas both Windows and OS X have web services of their own.