Re: Linus addresses 'usability and functionality'

On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 21:59:28 +0000, Nog wrote:

> I tried Gnome. No wonder I went back to KDE. I thought it was just me.
>
>
> Dust mites hate vacuum cleaners!

No,it wasn't just you.....it was another example of how some versions of
Linux, or more specifically, some user interfaces are getting
"dumbed-down" in an apparent attempt at appealing to a greater range of
potential and real users.

Actually there are two different phenomena at play here. The first
involves merely a question of user interfaces; i.e. KDE vs Gnome and
others.

The second is that some Linux *distributions* are actually getting dumbed
down. The perfect example is Lindows/Linspire. Actual parts of what have
traditionally been integral parts of Linux are completly absent from
Linspire, like networking daemons, compilers, developer tools, etc.

I can see and understand both design philosophies, namely simplicity for
greater mass appeal versus comprehensiveness for greatest flexibility and
usefullness.

Perhaps the best compromise has been achieved NOT by Redmond NOR
GNU/Linux, but rather by Apple's Mac OSX. The bad or the downside to that
great balancing act of simplicity/flexibility is that Apple chose to make
their system completely closed and proprietary. Of course, they're a
capitalist company responsible to their shareholders, and that is to be
expected.

The current state of computing presently supports all three paradigms, but
I suspect that in the future, as Open Source accelerates its takeover of
the marketplace, we'll start to see some serious shakeouts of OS offerings
available to the public. I personally don't think $Redmonsd's longterm
prognosis is good when viewed in this light.


Regards,

vg
.

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