How many of you out there feel that the primary attractant is the Desktop Environment, with the underlying OS being a secondary consideration, as long as it is Unix-/Linux-like?
If you agree with that viewpoint, then I would like to invite all those who cherish the MATE Desktop to come visit, hopefully to join, a new Google Group which I have named the MATE Companions.
The hope is that with everyone of like mind sharing a common venue to discuss issues, strategies and solutions, it must have as a consequence a synergistic result of improving the overall Desktop ecosystem, if that widely-scattered web of shared experience were leveraged for common benefit, rather than limited to the various “silos” associated with any single Distro!
The greater benefit would be to give visibility of the size of the MATE-specific community, in a centralized place, which could then help raise the awareness of
the full extent of the degree of need/demand,
with a view to encourage developpers to pursue that “market demand”.
We hope you will relate … to this expression of shared need … and consider joining the Companionship soon!
There is no intent to remove the existing MATE category here on Ubuntu Discourse.
MATE will continue to have a home here for collaboration, coordination, and discussion.
MATE is welcome here.
If you are looking for desktop environment only - why not go for the real thing? Why not visit mate-desktop.org and contribute to wiki.mate-desktop.org?
For anyone landing here wondering where to discuss Ubuntu MATE going forward — you’re already in the right place. Ubuntu Discourse is the new home for Ubuntu MATE community discussion, and the relevant category is easy to find.
A cross-distro Google Group is a different proposition, and that’s fine, but for Ubuntu-specific MATE questions this is where the Ubuntu community is.
As the Ubuntu MATE Discourse is transitioned to a read-only archive, I would encourage Ubuntu MATE users to join this Ubuntu Discourse instance
Please make good use of the Ubuntu MATE sub-category, which was kindly created by the Ubuntu community team at my request, so that Ubuntu MATE users can continue to help and support each other, while benefiting from being in the same place as the wider Ubuntu community.
I don’t see any conflict between the Ubuntu Discourse based forum and the MATE Companions forum.
Ubuntu’s will maintain its focus, as it always has, on Ubuntu’s context and installations, whereas the MATE Companions forum’s goal is to allow the knowledge acquired by ALL those adhering to MATE in the wider “diaspora” , irrespective of the underlying host environment, to be cross-polinated between the Communities of the various Distros, some of which we saw with the UbuntuMATE Discourse which is now winding down, thereby ensuring that by having a more Distro-agnostic experience, the MATE devotees will be better positionned to survive and thrive, regardless of the underlying OS (Ubuntu, Mint, RedHat, Arch, Suse, etc.).
So far, I’ve posted an invitation on some of the other Distro sites, and still have more to contact.
We’ll see how things evolve. Hopefully for the benefit of all, as intended!
Early days! We shall see how things evolve, and whether there is enough momentum for it to be sustainable. Only time, and the willingness of participants, will tell how successful it becomes.
