Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things...

[Riccardo Canalicchio]

Hi all,

please to meet you, and thanks for your work on gnustep.

Sorry for the intrusion into the discussion...

I'm Riccardo Canalicchio, a fresh new gnustep user, I would like to be involved in the development. I'm studying the gnustep environment and currently I'm trying to make a a theme because I don't feel confortable with the default. When the theme will  be in a usable stage I'd like to share it with you. Meanwhile if I've some doubts is this mailing list the right place to have some mentoring?

On 23 November 2013 12:33, Richard Frith-Macdonald <richardfrithmacdonald@gmail.com> wrote:

On 23 Nov 2013, at 08:48, Gregory Casamento <greg.casamento@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm in agreement with this. I've been saying this for many years. I would like to call for a consensus on this matter. Are there any dissenting opinions to changing the default look?

Yes!

Show me the theme you want to switch to, and then we can talk about it (I'm easily persuaded if something makes sense).  I would have thought that an iOS style theme might be popular.
But until we have at least one fully working alternative theme to switch to (or better, a number of themes to select from), discussing switching is nothing but a waste of time.

Actually, even the argument that the *default* theme puts people off is really nonsense ... if people see something that puts them off, is is what they *see* that puts them off, not whether what they see is *default*.

Put screenshots of GNUstep looking 'sexier' on the website.  Make them more prominent than the existing theme by all means (eg. put them first and bigger).  To find out which works best (ie is most popular) we could have some sort of click-through or download counter.

I've just been reading a book 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' by Daniel Kahneman and one of the things I was struck by was the psychological research measuring the tendency of people to avoid risk to the extent of avoiding changes from an existing state even when, in any other context, they would think the new sytate was better than the old one.

Whatever you intend, as long as you talk about changing the default theme, people will read that as replacing/getting-rid-of the current look (rather than supporting equal alternatives).  While I know that's not what you mean, it's counterproductive as it will always produce opposition from anyone who likes the current theme, and even from people who might like a new theme better!  IMO you should simply provide/advertise at least one good new look rather than 'threatening' a change.

Build and advertise at least one good new theme.

'If you build it, he will come'

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