> OTOH desktop users that will be attracted to Devuan will also be in
majority the same who also already renounced Gnome and Kde, their pomp
and their work, not to mention their bloat.

This.

> IMHO, if we're *technically* able to deliever GNOME, we definitely
should do that.

Disagree. They will not want to collaborate with any community, that
don't share their opinion.

So, what we have from their side (in latest five years):

* a lot of forks: Mate (gnome2), cinnamon (gnome3), unity (pre-gnome3)
(only alive included, but i remember at least "Consort" also)

They did not appear out of nowhere, but because of disagreement with the
vector of development of the project.

* "simplified" interface and settings (read as "dumb-aware").

http://blogs.gnome.org/otte/2012/07/27/staring-into-the-abyss/
https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/UkoAaLDpF4i

* gtk3 -- slower and incopatible with itself in minor versions.

http://blogs.gnome.org/mortenw/2014/06/23/how-does-one-create-a-gtk-application/
http://redmine.audacious-media-player.org/boards/1/topics/1135
http://make-linux.org/misc/2013/09/gtk3-omg/ (in russian)

As a result, significant number of projects decided:

...Qt migration.
http://blog.lxde.org/?p=966
http://blog.lxde.org/?p=1013
Unity8

... or gtk2 downgrade
http://redmine.audacious-media-player.org/boards/1/topics/1269
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-studio-users/2011-May/007629.html

...or using own toolkit
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTYyNzQ
(Chrome/Chromium, was - gtk2)

... or delaying migration to gtk3
Firefox (three years, still pending:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=627699)
Xfce4 (two years, no progress,
http://wiki.xfce.org/releng/4.12/roadmap/gtk3)
LibreOffice

* persistent rumors about the work, in fact, only with systemd

http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GNOME/3.8-upgrade-guide
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2011-May/msg00427.html

* community interaction (briefly can be described as "f*ck all other world")

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2009-December/msg00055.html
(Proposal about leaving GNU)
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/439 (Tribalism is the enemy
within) (not mentioned gnome, but written exactly after unity fork)

* "strange" ideas

- GnomeOS (somebody have ever seen devices with it?)
- own package manager
(http://blogs.gnome.org/alexl/2013/02/01/developer-hackfest-status/)

* a lot of incomplete, useless, or abandoned software

Ephiphany, Empathy, Evolution, Emperor, gnome-commander, gnome office

====================================

Summarizing all above (IMHO):

* keep gtk3 support at minimal required level and provide alternatives,
according this order: qt, gtk2, wxwidgets, tk. (hey enlightment, are you
alive?)
* keep GNOME and all it's related subprojects away. Don't waste your
time for it. If user wants gnome-shell like interface - then adopt Unity.

29.12.2014 06:47, Renaud (Ron) OLGIATI пишет:
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2014 21:43:06 +0100
> Klaus Hartnegg <hartnegg@???> wrote:
>
>>> I understand that Devuan wants to give Debianites who use Gnome an
>>> option to move smoothly to a systemd-free future (and stick it to
>>> Gnome in the process). But does that have to be a top priority? Why
>>> not get Devuan up and running with DEs/WMs that are not so entangled
>>> with systemd then tackle Gnome once the basic structure is in place?
>
>> This depends on the users. I suspect that Devuan attracts more server
>> admins than desktop users. For server admins it would be fine to first
>> get the base system going, and care about GUI later. However maybe
>> making Gnome work will be easier when certain requirements have been
>> taken into account in the design the base system.
>
> OTOH desktop users that will be attracted to Devuan will also be in majority the same who also already renounced Gnome and Kde, their pomp and their work, not to mention their bloat.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ron.
>

--
-- Alex