Comment 420 for bug 332945

I can certainly agree with and appreciate that. It is true that the
notification area in the average Ubuntu installation is nowhere near as
cluttered as the system tray in the average Windows installation, and it
is better to solve a problem *before* it becomes a problem rather than
after. I'd like to think that Ubuntu users are a cut above Windows
users, and that we don't simply ignore icons we don't understand. With
that said, however, I also understand that when a Windows user chooses
to (or is persuaded to) try out Linux, Ubuntu is usually the distro of
choice - and for good reason. While a cluttered notification area is not
very ideal, forcing windows to pop up uncommanded in the user's face is
truly bad form - the sort of thing I thought GNU/Linux was above. The
average Windows convert would likely panic, thinking that he or she had
contracted a virus; and the average Linux user would start having
Windows flashbacks.

I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, and that the people who
*really* need to hear this are no longer listening, but... If Ubuntu is
going to continue to serve as the "bridge" between the Windows and Linux
communities, then we really need to set better examples than this, and
not give in to the "Windows way" of doing things.

-----Original Message-----
From: Chauncellor
Date: Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:13:25 -0000

Loïc Martin: I believe that, while it was certainly a plus for them to
clean up the notification dialogue, the end goal was to make updates
more noticeable and present for the average user that would probably
just ignore the icon in the tray. Nine out of ten Windows machines that
I fix have a "swamp" of icons in the tray, and the customers that I
handle almost always don't know what any of them do. While there is
certainly a lesser amount of icons in Ubuntu, it would still probably be
ignored just as much.