Comment 659 for bug 532633

I think Mark first rationale for the change was actually right and
overriding. He needs to clear the right corner to put something there
and he needs to do it 6 months in advance.

I can already sort of guess what it will be. Forget Esfera, it will be
some sort of live facebook chat/twitter feed/location broadcaster/ad
displayer, possibly.

The functionality is there, the calendar panel applet can stay open on
top of the windows already. And it really wouldn't work any other way,
the bottom corners are used by applications with either controls or the
status bar, and the top left side has the menus and the most used
toolbar buttons as well as the gnome menu bar.

So the best option if you want to put an always on top applet is to move
everything to the left, buttons AND title, to make room for it. It is in
fact such an obvious move that it makes sense to piss off almost
everybody to pull it off.

BUT

If I'm right, this is bad news already. Good functionality doesn't need
a preemptive strike 6 months ahead of time just to "soften" the targets,
bad functionality does.

It could be something so bad that people* will complain about it by
itself, let alone the title bar scramble, so Mark is attempting to
separate the criticisms, reordering the title bar now so that the future
complains would be limited to the new gimmick alone.

And of course there is the psychological trick of asking for a lot of
money before asking for less money as to make the second request seem
more reasonable.

So Mark was sincere the first time all along, he needs to make room for
functionality that's so compelling, it has to be introduced gradually.

* When I say people I mean the bleeding-edge, open to change,
ubuntu-loyal beta testing community that didn't like this change.

(And yes I'm still here, for several reason I've not been able to
unsubscribe as I meant to)

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