@Maarten Kossen
Swiping into any direction would be a nice and handy metaphor for turning  the 
pages of a book. But instead of this the swiping will reveal the launcher which 
people might not even know exists because it is auto-hidden on a touch screen? 
Well, nicely done. For me this sound not very logical or intuitive. Especially 
since many people use tablets as some form of high powered e-reader, e-book, 
webbrowser and not much more (besides reading e-mails). 

@all
The fact that so many people have problems with only one feature and debate it 
for over one year now, would make me think about the decisions. I think that 
all of us really like Ubuntu, the idea behind Ubuntu and even Unity. If we 
didn't care for Unity, we would not start debating a single feature but instead 
we would criticize the whole Unity Shell (which is exactly what we are not 
doing at the moment, which is very good.)
The point is, one can see the arguments against a moveable launcher. But many 
of them are not really valid anymore. And I am sorry, I cannot see any really 
conclusive and convincing argument against a movable launcher in the far 
future. 


@John Lea (and I am afraid I have to get a little bit academic now)
You didn't get my car metaphor right. I was not talking about blocking future 
developments and innovation. Innovation  is a good thing. I was talking about 
something that in psychological theories is called the "horizon of 
expectation". 
If you see a product you expect things. If these expectations are not met they 
break that horizon of expectations and usually are met with criticism and 
debate. My analogy was about the doors in a car. Not the number of doors, but 
the doors itself. If you have a car with two, four or eight doors. You will 
expect all of them to work as doors and not as windows. You create your own 
horizon of expectation derived by your life experiences, they define your 
habits and pattern of thinking. 
The criticism that emerges when breaking this horizon will inevitably create 
debate, which in itself is not bad. Breaking the horizon of expectation very 
often resulted in new innovations. But breaking the horizon several times, on 
multiple points will automatically result in defamiliarization (or alienation) 
of those who see their horizon of expectations broken too often by the same 
event/thing. 
Basically the premise under which you developed Unity was good, and well 
thought. The design is creating familiarities on different points by creating 
elements you can relate to because they are known, working features in smart  
phones, desktops of operating systems, netbook interfaces etc... 
The problem arises when those points which apparently create familiarities are 
broken when the recipient (user) experiences moments when those familiar 
paradigms, which create stability, are not working as expected. 
The people here want exactly one feature added. And indeed you can postulate 
that every single concession made here will result in debates on other places 
about different topics and different bugs. And thus you might complain that too 
many user features will result in an unmaintainable Unit. The difference is 
that there are very very few bugs on launchpad which are debated to 
extensively, so vigorously and so passionately. This should make you think 
about it. 
I once told here before. I think the idea of Mark Shuttleworth of a dictator, 
as somebody whose power lies "in dictandi ingenio", in the power to command  if 
requested and if necessary, is basically a good thing. Too much debate about 
everything will destroy a product and make it a formless mass which is 
unmaintainable code. But a Roman dictator had only a short period of this time 
of absolute power to command and make decisions. He was never held responsible 
for those thing he commanded during that period of reign. But after a few month 
this reign was over and there was again a debate culture in the Roman Senate 
and the Assemblies. 
What I want to say: if so many people, at least a significant and "audible" 
number of people, want something, then wouldn't it be right to raise against 
the topic. Bring it before the assemblies and the senate (so discuss in in some 
internet fora/forums, on mailing lists of the Dx or design or desktop teams). 
Make the members of those lists read this whole discussion that is raging for 
over one year now. And then decide again what is right and what is wrong.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/668415

Title:
  Movement of Unity launcher

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