Comment 2 for bug 32457

I took the time to register and report this bug upstream, as dholbach suggested on IRC, and just as I suspected, they closed it saying it isn't a bug.

BUT, the purpose of a screensaver is not to mess up end users who are playing games or watching movies. Its purpose is to do two basic things:

1) Allow the screen to be locked while being temporarily away from the PC
2) To have something constantly moving on the screen (or alternately have a blank screen), to avoid burn-in images.

If I am watching a movie or playing a game, I am not going to be temporarily away from the PC, and locking the screen is not something I will want to do, so #1 is not needed.

If I am playing a game or watching a movie, then the screen is constantly changing, and therefore I am avoiding burn-in images, nullifying #2.

I am not the only one who found this "functionality" to be a pain, and I think that the upstream attitude of "it should be changed in every other application" is wrong.

Xscreensaver used to work just fine, and I think that given the circumstances, it should remain default in Dapper, until either upstream changes their tune, or every other application (which may or may not be actively maintianed) modifies all of their applications to work around a new screensaver design.

The alternative is to leave gnome-screensaver as default and deal with many unsatisfied and annoyed users.