On Wednesday 26 December 2007 17:22:51 Dan Meltzer wrote:
> As discussed recently on irc, I feel like it is far too late in the
> release process to even considder committing something like this.  We
> are ten days before a release, adding something this noticible to the
> user with very few opportunities for them to provide feedback is very
> irresonsible.  This should wait for 4.1 to allow for more testing and
> feedback before a release.

And as discussed recently on IRC, I repeat me once more in stating how stupid it is (sorry for the not-so-calm tone, but after the discussion on IRC I'm a bit fed up) not including something that might really improve the user experience with no drawbacks of any kind. Deadlines are put there to stabilize the software, not to block any kind of development.

Please, just imagine a desktop where everything has been styled according to the same artistic vision... something like that never happened in the Free Software world.

With this logic, you shouldn't even be able to commit new icons, just because they might not look as good as the other ones, or some user might complain.

Come on, let's get reasonable. Experts in this topic have evaluated the work, and they think it rocks. Accessibility people (Olaf) ACK'd this. Artists too. 
Others may not even have seen it (also because the final design has been drawn in this month), although they've always been developed publicly, but telling what to improve in the theme is just not their role.
It's just like putting a nerd as referee of a football match... I mean... yeah, you might be an awesome hacker... but... you're just not the right person for doing it. =)
And we've expressely designed them to be perfectly suitable for long term usage, sometimes even renouncing to some beautiness.

Now, why the user shouldn't get these goodies just because some nerd decides that the cursor theme might eventually in some case not be good enough. Sure, someone might not like it, but I just want to point out that the perfect artwork simply does not exist. Our effort of not boring users with something that cannot be seen for more than a couple of months is also the reason about why we're shipping a white cursor theme, instead of something shinier (and trust me, something shinier exists, check the other colors).
Plus, it will improve the current situation *for sure*.

Someone might think that Oxygen icons are shit. Ok, (s)he's free to choose another theme. We're not forcing anyone, it's just something that improves the overall user experience with no drawbacks of any kinds!

Deadlines are a good thing, and I respect them, think that they're very useful, and that asking for exceptions is not something we should do.
But the point is, I'm not asking for one! This is artwork! it doesn't introduce any kind of regressions, it cannot harm! At all! What could go wrong? Stabilizing (and translating) is the whole point of deadlines, please don't forget it.