Dvorak: Linux too much like Windows 584
inode_buddha was among a handful of folks who submitted linkage to Dvorak's latest column where he talks about Linux being to much like Windows. It's not really a slam, just a challange to be more innovative and look beyond feature creep and UI concepts that are old and tired. Hard to disagree with most of it.
For people switching... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:For people switching... (Score:3, Troll)
Re:For people switching... (Score:2)
Re:For people switching... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:For people switching... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For people switching... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:For people switching... (Score:2, Insightful)
If Joe User already *has* Windows, why would he waste time getting up to speed on another almost-Windows O/S when he gains nothing other than a few $ savings?
Re:For people switching... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:For people switching... (Score:3, Informative)
Because:
- with some practice most people can type faster that they can talk
- everyone can read much faster than talking speed
- you can't skim through the bullshit and get to the point
- you can't search through an archive of voicemail (not easily yet)
Voicemail has been around longer than email, but it has hardly ever been used for more than "This is Jack, call me when you're back".Linux is enough like Windows now, so lets innovate (Score:3, Interesting)
People using Lycoris and Lindows most likely cannot tell the difference.
Let those two OS's use the Windows style GUI, but lets innovate now because we already have things as Windows like as possible.
I think its time to innovate. I've given many ideas to the mailing lists, maybe they will use a few.
Re:For people switching... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, like there's no right-click context-sensitive menu, which IMHO is one of the best UI features since GUIs have been around.
(Getting OT here, but...)
I don't mean to troll against macs here (although I will ;-) ), but MacOS X is (IMHO) the most counter-intuitive UI ever designed.
We've had an iMac (one of the flatscreen with DVD-writer) in the office for a while - it's the only CD-writer there is, and it's hilarious watching people use it...
"Hmmm, pretty"
"Now, how do I burn a CD?"
"Let's try putting the blank CD in first."
"Where's the eject button???"
(someone walks past and points out the eject key on the keyboard)
"OK, name the CD....'untitled' will do"
"Hey, the icon appeared on the desktop! Neat!"
"Now all I do is right-click on the CD icon and..."
"How do I right-click with this thing????"
(much later)
"OK, there's 500MB left on the CD so I can just add another session..."
"What do you mean 'read-only'? What happened to multi-session?"
"What do you mean, I have to be administrator to erase a CD-RW???? It's meant to be rewritable, isn't it???"
"SO, there's a mere 100K of data on this CD-RW but there's no logical way I can write ANY more data on it?"
(user walks away in digust and finds someone with winblows on their laptop)
Seen it happen many times... I'm not joking
Hypocrite (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, before Mr. Dvorak challegened the developers, maybe he should have come up with some UI concepts that are new and exciting.
2D UI has become pretty much perfected, there is almost no way to improve upon it.
Re:Hypocrite (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hypocrite (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with hyper simplicity is lack of functionality/custimization.
The problem with custimization is that it adds incosistency and complexity.
There is no way for a single consistent desktop to appease all power users and noobs alike.
You can go like Windows and force 3rd parties to make custimizations, or you can go like Linux and allow any user to access them. Probably they idea way is have a beginner/expert setting in the custimizations to keep people that don't feel they are experts away from obscure things (to them) like windows focus.
Also, was the Grandparent trying to imply that OSX was perfected? Because lots of unnessacery animation (zoom on mouse over of something plenty big to see already) is hardly what I would call a feature of a perfected UI.
Re:Hypocrite (Score:5, Insightful)
There is: sensible defaults with varying levels of customization, and a clear but informative interface by which to perform that customization. I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about (yes, it does exist):
For those of you who have used ximian's gnome distro with the sawfish window manager, you may have already experienced this. Ximian goes to great lengths to make desktop look & feel -- by which I mean the file browser (nautilus) and window manager (sawfish) -- a pretty simple experience for those just getting into it. The first time you log in, you're presented with a few choiced about what you want things to look like (sawfish & gnome themes), but behaviorally, you're given the defaults (reasonable and simple behaviors).
After that, most (at least everything even an advanced user would care about) of the behavioral / visual modifications can be done using one common interface: the gnome control center (please ignore KDE for the point of this discussion for a moment).
If you've ever used this interface to change the behavior of sawfish, you know what I'm talking about. Sawfish has several different screens (for different areas of its behavior & appearance) in the control center. In its "Meta" screen, one can even set the level of complexity regarding the other sawfish configuration screens. If I'm a novice (the default), I am only presented with a few options. More complex options are presented when I choose intermediate or expert.
To me, this is an outstanding way to provide simplicity as the default behavior with the configurability that power users demand. I hate window managers that don't allow me to remap modifier + mouse buttons to different behaviors. I've found a combination which I believe is much more efficient (and intuitive) for three-button mouse users as far as moving, resizing, etc. goes. If I'm not allowed to set this up, then that particular window manager (to me) is bunk.
This is one of the reasons I hate the RedHat 8.0 UI so much. The user interface is one of imposed simplicity. It's really difficult to find out how you can change metacity (if that's even possible). RedHat's new preferences interface is just as lobotomized. What's worse is that if you switch back to sawfish, all kinds of functionality (like logging out of an xession?!) breaks (thanks guys, real slick).
The problem is that power users are in the minority of desktop computer users. This is an unfortunate reality with which I still have not yet come to terms. The problem? Baby-boomers. There are so many people like my parents who are not technically proficient, who "just want the damn thing to work", but "don't want to have to understand or think about it". These are the people with the money, and these are the people to whom companies must market their products.
This is the reason why usability (real usability from the sense of the power user) takes second seat: FFM (Focus Follows Money). I hope sawfish continues to be integrated into the major distros (properly). I hope the technically proficient of the world will continue to donate their time and write free software that is usable by more than the common idiot. I hope that Windows will not define what is included and what is not in the desktop just because most of the desktop users are used to it.
But I'm not holding my breath, and I hate it.
Re:Hypocrite (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hypocrite (Score:3, Interesting)
I think, though, that wizards are a symptom of the problem. If it's that bloody hard to do something, then putting a big button on top to mash all of the little buttons at once is a problem.
Re:Hypocrite (Score:2, Funny)
you should have the balls to write an article critizing linux, and have all the nerds from slashdot calling your house to make death threats!
Re:Hypocrite (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention the fact that any differences from Windows are likely to get slammed by the users (and by pundits such as Dvorak) as being incompatible. Good, bad, or indifferent if Linux is going to take over the desktop it is going to have to be easy for the current group of Windows users to understand.
Re:Hypocrite (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hypocrite (Score:5, Insightful)
The interaction sucks. Users have to perform many unnecessary actions. Why do I have to press "OK", read the "field value missing" dialog box, close it, fill the damn field and repeat the whole thing? Don't tell me that graying out the "OK" button untill all the required fields (which should be clearly marked as such) are filled is "dumbing down". It's a shame that document editors still need the "Save" button (this is an old example), when the edited file could easily and transparently get saved in the background. Irreversible changes? Why should they be irreversible? The disk space taken by saving the whole undo buffer is microscopic compared to modern disk sizes. Well, perhaps "label version" should get there instead of the "save" button, so that i can conveniently roll back to an old version without hitting "undo" 100 times. These are just a general examples that can be found in almost every application. Specific application have even more inconvieniences.
We got used to this so much that we don't even notice how crappy the UI is, but it is crappy and it can get better.
Re:Hypocrite (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hypocrite (Score:5, Insightful)
When you figure out how to draw a picture with the command line, or edit a video, or make a 3D model, or even play checkers, let me know. Until then, graphical interfaces are here to stay.
Re:Hypocrite (Score:2)
I do agree on the other tasks, though.
He doesn't like anything, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this guy just bashes everything to get people riled up and to have people read his articles.
Re:He doesn't like anything, huh? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:He doesn't like anything, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
My former boss was a journalist in New Zealand. She would find someone to interview on some travesty in thier lives or whatever, and she'd drive up to their house, and pretend her car was broken down and ask to use the phone. Then the number would be "busy" so she'd start talking, and then have tea and then they'd spilled their guts and it all went into the news paper.
A specific example: she was assigned to get the dirt on a woman that had been raped by a politician. The victim wouldn't talk to journalists, so my boss pretended to pass out outsite the woman's place of employment. the woman (as any woman would do) rushed to help the stranger. she "revived" my boss and she eventually blabbed her mouth off about everything, which went straight into the paper, with a twist of opinion gleaned from the personality traits she gathered from her "rescuer."
My point: I never ever ever ever ever trust any journalist that ever utters an opinion under a journalistic premise. The so called journalist Bill O'Reilly's "The O'Reilly Factor" show is a good example of someone to not listen to. John Dvorak is another.
of course do what you want, but be wary of anyone trying to sell you something - be it a car or an idea.
he's a whore. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the whole article is an ignorant slam. It's so stupid, that a starting point of constructive criticism is hard to find. He describes the whole free software world as a windoze deriviative born on x86 by "boring coders" and other uncreative types that lacks "features" of the only true software, Microsoft. That's the kind of insight you might expect from someone who's only experience with the free software world comes from having popped a CD into his machine for five minutes or so. Of course not one word is correct. True to the pure troll, he offers no useful alternatives to the things he does not like, except to stick with the M$ word of undefined features.
For those of you who might not be aware of this, the millions of free and open software coders of the world are much better researched than Dvorac. GNU/Linux has taken the best sofware concepts from all operating systems. It takes it's multi user security model from the Unix world. WIMPs came from Bell and Xerox Park, and many different GUI systems are available as free software. The most prominant and one of the most powerful is XFree86, a network aware base for many fine Window managers. Window managers of all descriptions and sources are available to run on top of X. You can get Virtual Reality and 3D desktops if you want them. Yes, it's true that you can make these window managers act just like M$ junk, but you can change that with a press of a theme button. Some prominant window managers come with a default that looks like M$ junk so new users can learn how to make the thing work at their own pace. You see, choice is what free software is all about. Developers and users are free to follow any fancy they have and it all works together. Most free software has been ported to other hardware and even different software platforms. I have not even mentioned the Berkely Software Distribution universe and it's derivatives in use by many including the very artsy Apple. Free software is also being adopted by the opposite end of the computer using specturm as well - the dull likes of IBM and Wall Street Bankers. You can take it and make it what you want, so anyone and everyone is now doing just that. They are are generally happy and wonder in time how they ever managed to get along in the coiceless and ever more rapicious propriatory software world.
Re:he's a whore. (Score:2)
Amazing.
Re:he's a whore. (Score:3, Interesting)
From the article: Long ago, Microsoft recognized that features sell software--not code size, efficiency, or even a pretty interface.
Tell that to the "designers" of XP: all ugly interface fluff.
I don't know about everyone else here, but the number of features availably on my Linux machine are a whole lot more comprehensive than on my Windoze one. At home (using Linux) I'm running: an enterprise-level web server (with support for Java, PHP, Perl, CGI, SSL, you name it), an internal DNS server, a caching DNS server, a highly-configurable router / firewall, an SSH daemon, a mail server (one which serves as both a primary for some domains and a secondary forwarding server for others), two different database servers, a print server (usable by Linux, UNIX, Windoze, OS X), a networked file share (available via NFS and Samba), a networked scanner server, a modem pool, a fax server, a VPN server, a jabber instant messaging server, an add-filtering HTTP proxy, an OGG/MP3 networked jukebox, a tape backup system, an LDAP user directory (with integrated logins for my Windoze/OS X boxes and support for redundant mirrors on other machines), an internal DHCP server, and encrypted file systems.
Cost to date: hardware + my time.
Software cost to date: $0.
All the software I needed (with the exception of the jabber server and the jukebox) came with my distro. I even had a few choices for some of the stuff (sendmail vs. postfix, ipchains vs. iptables vs. whatever else, ssh vs. frees/wan, junkbuster vs. squid, mysql vs. postgres, dhcpcd vs. pump).
Show me a windows machine that can do that all that (on the same machine!) with that cost, and then I'll concede the features point.
Re:he's a whore. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, the guy really does have a point - KDE (and to a lesser extent GNOME) has always tried to copy windows and it's made it a far worse product as a result. It looks contrived, it's slow, and there's no good reason why anyone would want to use it instead of Windows, unless they cared about (a) opensource philosophy or (b) having to pay money for windows. Both KDE and GNOME are just as ugly and souless as Windows, and no amount of pro-Linux propaganda is going to miraculously fix this!
Compare this to Mac OS X - people use Macs even though they cost more and use monopolistic, proprietary hardware because the interface appeals to them. It means something to them, and that's even worth more than the extra costs involved in buying a Mac. Macintosh has always wanted to be seen as being different, as revolutionary, not recycling. If linux really wanted to succeed then it (read Linux-on-the-Desktop, read GNOME/KDE) would be best to develop its own style and glory in its uniqueness, not harp on about it's similarity to Windows! If people want to switch from Windows, they're not going to do it because it costs less. They're going to do it because Linux can offer more.
As a disclaimer, I should add that I use linux exclusively and yes, I'm happy in linux because I stick well clear of either KDE or GNOME and use some of the wonderful alternative interfaces that have been developed. There is good stuff out there, you're absolutely right. But this is so well hidden that a newbie will never find it - and this is Dvorak's point. The first thing a new linux user will see is the KDE desktop, and it's only if they're brave enough to experiment (fairly unlikely) that they will discover any of the software that makes linux a joy to use.
So please, don't start believing your own propaganda. If the first look at linux doesn't appeal to someone, perhaps you should pause and think - "hey, maybe there might be a reason for that", not automatically say "hmph! they don't like linux, they must be some stupid luser, what would they know!"
Re:he's a whore. (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish I had some mod points to mod you up, but of course folks avoid modding in threads where they wish to reply, so I used them before I read this thread. Damn, because you make some very valid points.
I agree that KDE and Gnome are not pushing the envelope in interface design. I think most of the programmers working today have grown up in an world so saturated with Windows that they honestly haven't been able to imagine better ways of doing things.
Dvorak may be a whore, but like a very old whore he's seen everything. He started writing about PCs in the Altair era, and has witnessed nearly the entire evolution of the personal computer. He's written about Amigas, PenPoint, Deskview, NeXT, BeOS...whatever. And he gets demos of things before they come to market, including things that never came to market.
So, before people dismiss him as a buffoon, take a step back and consider what he is saying.
Re:He doesn't like anything, huh? (Score:3, Funny)
Or even 24 times a day, if you've got people from 24 different timezones (or to complete the analogy, schools of software design) comparing it to theirs.
Re:He doesn't like anything, huh? (Score:2)
Re:He doesn't like anything, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's because of a combination of things:
1) Apple produces a comprehensive set of UE guidelines for application developers to follow
2) Apple spends ungodly amounts of man-hours ensuring that *all* of the API stacks (Carbon, Cocoa, Java) adhere to the guidelines
3) 3rd party software developers actually follow the guidelines (imagine that!)
4) The users are not only aware of the guidelines, they are activists when it comes to getting on a developer for breaking them (sometimes fanatically so, let me assure you!)
Do any of those 4 things seem doable in the Linux arena? If one group produced a set of guidelines, there would instantly be groups coming up with a competing set of guidelines, groups claiming that such guidelines are anti-Free(tm), and groups of developers thinking that by breaking the guidelines it makes them look rebellious.
Could one of the API stacks in Linux adhere to a set of UE guidelines? Sure, for all I know the Gnome or KDE developers already have a set of guidelines for their APIs. The key is that in order to have consistency, *all* API stacks need to adhere to the *same* set of guidelines.
The only way to have a UE on Linux that is 'good' in the same way as an Apple OS has a good UE is for a single company (say, Redhat) to develop a set of guidelines for its platform, put in the work to make all the APIs adhere to their guidelines, and evangelize developers of the advantages of following the guidelines. And then, perhaps most importantly, users need to get on the bandwagon and actually give a sh*t about how well applications that they use follow the guidelines, and give developers hell for breaking them.
Re:He doesn't like anything, huh? (Score:3)
According to you, I should be trapped in Steve Job's introductory commercial for the Mac.
My desktop bears as much resemblance to WinDOS as it does to GEM. Dvorak just needs to get his head out of his *ss.
embrace and extend (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:embrace and extend (Score:2, Insightful)
Having multiple Window Managers allows a Windows user move over from Windows 2000 to KDE because it is so very Windowslike. Once they get used to being on a different platform and want to explore something a little different, they load WindowMaker or Fluxbox or some other WindowManager not yet invented that is a real shift in how we interface with a computer via keyboard and mouse.
Re:embrace and extend (Score:4, Insightful)
The opinion is often expressed here that the average user can't cope with any variation from the MS desktop, yet they transitioned from 3.1 to 95/8 to 2k/xp easily enough. Most could handle a Mac. People aren't that stupid, give them a desktop close enough and they'll accept it. The major stumbling blocks as I see it are configuration utilities, lack of applications and, to a lesser extent, the insane dependancies of some programs.
Finally, I have to question the whole concept that the route to sucess is mimicry. Has it ever proven successful? In my chosen field of radio I've lost count of the number of program directors who've tried to clone a competing station and failed. At first glance the FVWM95 windowmanager could fool most into believing it was Windows, yet who uses it?
Slicker (Score:5, Informative)
http://slicker.sourceforge.net/screen.htm [sourceforge.net]
Looks promising...
Re:Slicker (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically, instead of panels having buttons/menu items popping up dialog windows, you have tabs sitting on the edge of your desktop: one click to unfold them and one click to fold (iconify) them again.
Perhaps it would be interesting to see a window manager iconifying this way also application windows (equally distributing tabs on the four sides of your desktop). Of course, windows/tabs/whatever should be also detachable from the desktop edges (i.e. by dragging the tab).
Re:Slicker (Score:5, Interesting)
Folks, this is the way we do things in the real world when we build GUI applications. Software developers and UI designers get together with marketing people and collect requirements, then turn them into mockups that illustrate features. These mockups get tweaked around and played with, until finally some consensus emerges behind a design, or at least a basic outline for a design. Then developers go and build it - hopefully using some nice RAD tools so when things get further revised after seeing and feeling it in action, it doesn't take months of redo time.
A major problem in moving from Free Software that does back-end and command line stuff to Free Software GUI applications has been understanding the process required to build good, usable graphical user interfaces. It is a lot of work. Most of this work is not coding (which admittedly can be a fair portion of the work for complex GUIs that have a lot of event handling required, though again, hopefully you are using a tool suitable to the job), and most of it is not solving hard technical problems. Most of it is designing a look and feel, feature placement, and coherent organization to the UI, then tweaking the heck out of it to create a smooth user experience. Some Free Software apps get it right (my favorite browser, Phoenix, does a pretty damn good job, admittedly piggybacked off of years of technical work on the Mozilla framework, but focused on making a clean, pleasant browsing experience rather than a technology jumble). I'm sure there are others out there. This Slicker project looks like it has a lot of promise to bring a more pleasant, enjoyable user experience to KDE, which has always felt slightly awkward to me. Frankly, while being Windows-like is desireable up to a point, doing it without feeling ugly and klunky as hell would be nice, and you need some immediate, user-visible features that improve on the Windows experience, in the same way that Mac OS X is usable to any competent Windows user with little effort, but feels different enough to provide justification for switching.
Re:Slicker (Score:3, Interesting)
http://slicker.sourceforge.net/compare.htm [sourceforge.net]
Creap (Score:5, Funny)
One feature we don't have to worry about creeping up on Slashdot is a spellchecker.
WIMPs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:WIMPs (Score:2)
I don't know that I'd say I'm "comfortable" with the WIMP interface...as a matter of fact, my RSI tells me quite distinctly that I am UNcomfortable with the WIMP interface. Oh, that's probaably not what you meant. Psychologically it is BORING but on that level I am comfortable with it as I know what to do to get things done (or start with some of the more spartan GUI wms but physically it frickin' aches or even hurts. Class action lawsuit against mouse developers/designers, what do you say?
Ok, this guy is just plain wrong (Score:2)
Long ago, Microsoft recognized that features sell software--not code size, efficiency, or even a pretty interface.
This statement is 100% wrong. Most users never touch all the 'features' that windows ships with, they just use it for 4 things- IM, email, internet, and games. The reason microsoft is in such a good position is that their OS has a very intuitive interface, and linux has nothing even close to what windows has.
Intuitive my ass! (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ok, this guy is just plain wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
familiar features. One reason M$ Office is so bloated that 80 percent of users use only 20 percent of the features-- but each user has a different 20%! Only the goofiest things can get cut. And while OpenOffice is up to 90-95%, that leaves a huge number of people's favorite features.
a foot in the door. This will be the easiest to fix, though, since Linux has already found its way into many a back office. The hard part will be getting major PC vendors to support it, what with M$'s still-present powers of retribution. Personally, though, my biggest problem with the way Linux GUIs are going is that it gets harder with every new distribution to find a way to keep the close button in the top left corner of the window where it's been for me since 1984 and where it belongs! :-)
Well, Linux and Windows both run on Computers. (Score:5, Interesting)
... Believe me, buddy. I wouldn't be using linux right now if it wasn't quite as good as Windows. Windows came with this computer, and I'm not using it. That isn't because I'm some kind of linux religious freak. It's because I'm more productive on a linux box.
The same old command line? Somebody go tell this guy that linux (or any unix variant) doesn't have the same old command line as Windows. It's so obvious that they are different that I'm not going to type about it anymore
I'm getting the feeling that linux and windows are the same because they both run on computers. So they must be the same, right?
Re:The same old command line? (Score:3, Informative)
Then there's the real applications. Burning a CD from the command line isn't possible on Windows where with *nix most GUI cd burning programs don't actually know anything about burning cds. They just call cdrecord and it does all the work for it.
Re:The same old command line? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Windows NT Command Shell [microsoft.com].
WindowMaker (Score:5, Interesting)
I do agree with Dvorak that WIMPs is a bad idea, but I do think that it is one of the best concepts out there. Although I don't have icons except when I minimize a window. What I would like is a scrolling desktop(and a CPU that could even support it if I coded it). I want to watch my MPlayer Window _over_ the Mozilla Window, but if I move the mouse towards the scrollbar(where MPlayer is covering), the Moz window would move over or the Mplayer window would dynamically shrink, to transparency would occur allowing me to use the scrollbar without having to move the mplayer window.
Everyone thinks that 3-D Window Managers are next. I say 3-d accelerated Window Managers, but having a box with windows on each side _really_ doesn't cut it in my book. It's neat. It's neat to program. It's neat to play with. Gotta get back to work now, good-bye. Just because 3-d is a big gaming thing and not used for regular Windows does not make it "The Next Big Thing(tm)" in my book.
What I would like to see, and this is off-topic, is XML menu specification. So you can download, install a program, and then install a menu item for it with whatever Window Manager you are using. It just needs a few fields. If someone wants to go with this idea and wants me to help(put my money where my mouth is) just e-mail me and I've got no problem.
What I also want to see is the death of X-Windows. It's served it's term, but it isn't getting any better. I want to see DirectFB [directfb.org] succeed, but it needs to be multi-platform. I'm on FreeBSD so I can only run it under SDL ontop of X-Windows. But FreeBSD has something similar in the works set for probably 6.0 or whenever the person finishes it.
Communication and features between other type of hardware, specialized, would be great. And the framework to support it. Example, FingerWorks [fingerworks.com] has some great products and great concepts. Once I get the money I'm going for their keyboard. I'd like to see a framework to make it work with any GTK, Gnome, KDE, GNUStep, and a generic library to add support for it to any program. That way have a custom gesture(when it is created) that will allow you to launch a program. I want to be able to hit numlock twice(Example) and type in 0805040206 and launch a program of my choice. For me, memorize 5 numbers, adding a '0' before it, and typing that in is much faster than moving the mouse, opening the menu, finding it, and clicking it. The generic framework, standardized would be best, would add the ability for, say, Mozilla to receive the two numlocks, to realize that it is a registered event handler, and to pass it off to the framework and do what is asked. Say, even passing it off to the 'server' so to speak to figure out what to do, although I think if it was implemented on a window manager level it would be best. That way you have a generic framework to work with as far as developers go, possibly a generic XML exporter of all your functions that you've specific(scanning the bar code, with your CueCat, of your favorite foot powder say, brings up userfriendly), and a generic XML importer to bring into the Window Manager. But having it Window Manager based, so that it fits in with Accessibility theory(I believe?). It _is_ a part of KDE Control Panel, it _is_ a part of Gnome Control Panel, it _is_ a part of that little WindowMaker configuration program. Easy for developers, easy for users, easy to switch between.
Sorry for the long post.
Re:WindowMaker (Score:2, Interesting)
>install a program, and then install a menu item
> for it with whatever Window Manager you are
> using.
I see this as a common problem with all OS's I've used to date. Once you have 100+ apps. Its hard to find or remember what they are.
If you are lucky, they install themselves somewhere in a menu (Windows start bar, GNOME panel, KDE kicker, etc). But that place may not be where you might typically look!
Wouldn't it be great to have a dynamic menu system which would display apps by name OR by function, file type association, install date and more? All would be registered providing a keyword (or similar) description when the app is installed. Use a XML, text files, an SQL DB, something, anything as long as it is fast ! Would be cool if it was tied into RPM/APT/portage etc.
More and more I find myself manually searching my installed packages to find "hmmm-which sound recording apps do I have" or "gee-do I have a PNG viewer.." etc, etc. It is sickeningly inefficient.
Not even sure how you would do this under Windows... search the registry ?
Re:Menus (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WindowMaker (Score:3, Insightful)
I see this sentiment a lot on Slashdot lately, and I strongly disagree... The fact that with X you can run a program on one system, and have the output appear on another is one of the best features I have seen yet. I would really hate to see this disappear.
A few examples:
- At my school we use Sun Blades, with a very limited amount of programs installed, and a very restrictive firewall policy. So I just ssh to my Linux machine at home, and pull up Mozilla or my jabber client.
- Vice versa, when I am at home and want to work on some assignments, I just ssh into a machine at school, open an editor window and start hacking away.
- Finally, I have a linux server at home with no keyboard, monitor or mouse attached to it. I can ssh into it, and, for example, do an make xconfig on my kernel setup.
I could go on, but the point is: the fact that X runs transparantly over network is one of it's greatest features. I consider it a case of sound design that an X server acts as a canvas on which programs can display themselves, regardless of where this canvas is.Yes, this is sick! (Score:2, Informative)
Most of the new 'features' are copy of windows or Mac... WTF ? Can't you innovate something new ?
As for the people who think that they can lure more users just by giving similar look and feel, ponder-
Price isn't the only consideration for many many people out there. What you're doing here is trying to provide a cheap xerox copy of an original... would you like one ? No! If a person can shell out $99 for the original, he WILL ! A COPY is still an *imitaion*, no matter how thick a paper its printed on. You've got a good OS, invent new things... why lug around the same legacy ?
For example see BeOS, Amiga or even Mac... windows compatibility or windows look-n-feel was never their selling point (hell, not even the last point)!! Yet people loved them. By following windows, you're implicitely stating that 'Yes windows is "the rule", and we're trying to catch up'. Why don't you realise that windows/Mac don't the best UI/interface/architecture possible... there's always something better!
Re:Yes, this is sick! (Score:2)
You might wonder why things are this way. It would seem that a lot of users prefer these tried and true inerfaces and features. So why not implement them?
You claim that people need to realise that there is something better... Ok. By all means... We await your suggestions to improve things. I'm sure that all of the Windows users that are attempting to make the switch to Linux will be barking at you when things just aren't enough like Windows for an easy migration. You need to have familiarity there. If you don't want it, then use a different Window manager. But you don't seem to understand that people want Windows/Mac-like UIs. They are comfortable with these.
I run KDE 3 at home because it is the easiest for my girlfriend to use. It seems that for normal tasks; web browsing, email, music, etc. This is the easiest UI for her to use. I guarantee that most Windows users will be able to use it the first time you set them down in front of it. And that DOES matter to many.
really? (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact is, any window environment must be similar to windows or users will get confused. New entrants must cater to the existing standard. Try building a new car with a different interface or maybe publish a book that reads up -> down. These items will fail. Look at the new BMW 7 series, all they did was add a dial that has extra functionality instead of a normal automatic shifter. Even though the traditional pedal acceleration and stop system remained. many buyers were completely put off by the idea.
Keeping Linux like windows is a good idea, getting rid of point and click makes no sense right now, but that doesn't mean in can't be done. With Linux people can write all types of crazy interfaces and environments, test them on a wide scale, and receive feedback. Apple and Microsoft can't afford to research 100 different window managers, but with Linux this is possible. The only problem with Linux is the developers, usually make decisions on the UI and look and feel. There needs to be a system in place where artists can make significant contributions to the DESIGN of open source software.
Re:really? (Score:2)
There are other differences from Windows in Mac,
the single menu bar at the top of the screen is probably a bigger change for users coming from windows.
Probably still not a "significant" change. But IMO the sum of all the minor differences between OS X and Windows make OS X more enjoyable (in most respects). Haven't used Linux GUI's enough to really get a good feel (I'm a command line guy on Linux).
John shoots, John misses the mark (Score:5, Insightful)
Another point he's missed so far is that Linux doesn't just move in one direction, it moves in many directions at once, so that you have a number of complete, well-developed environments each of which caters to certain tastes, all the way from text mode consoles to kde, which is more-or-less Linux for windows refugees, to experimental 3D environments. I suppose he would come back with the usual argument about how it doesn't make sense to divide effort across all those different projects, but then he'd just be ignoring one of Linux's great strengths, which is the sheer number of coders involved. In fact, trying to get them working obediently all on the same project at the same time would be shear insanity.
John, if you're reading this, and I guess you will, what you have to realize is that you do get to escape your boring old desktop metaphor and try something different, like a Tivo, which doesn't look like a desktop at all, plus you get to keep working the same way you always did, if that's what you want. It's about choice, and that's what Linux has. How's that for something new?
Is nothing sacred to this man (Score:2, Interesting)
What is hands down most interesting about this is that for those of us who know his work, it seems to be a reversal of position. In the past Dvorak has ruthlessly bashed the macintosh operating system which stands for being different and had the original interface designed by artist.
There is some truth to the idea that an artist would make a better interface, but there are some guidelines which tend for better interfaces, and in general, a platform standard works well.
Apple provides the Aqua Human Interface Guidelines on their website for developers. This unification of interfaces on all application provices a unity over the system. In the MacOS a button in one application that is simmilar to another button should do basically the same thing. There are layout guidelines and notes for when to use different interface features, so a seasoned user will know what to expect when he or she does something.
The problem with impliemting something like this in the linux community is that there are many people working on any given thing, and too much varitation in X to do it well. Yes, it could be done but it isn't likely to happen.
Furthermore as far a putting features into the operating system, as someone above stated, that is what makes it easier to switch from Windows to Linux, and to that I say all the more power to us. Also Dvorak over looks the fact that any feature can be turned off, if the person dosen't feel like using it and wants more control over the system.
The point of Linux isn't to be difficult. It's to be open, free, and customizable. It is for those who don't want specific software shoved down their throats, and want to make their own software, edit someone else's or contribute to the greater good of their OS experiance.
Creeping Featurism? (Score:5, Funny)
Methinks that Dvorak has been reading Slashdot too much and is starting to let the Soviet Russia jokes get to him.
Re:Creeping Featurism? (Score:5, Informative)
And here you thought you were being funny.
I agree with Dvorak (Score:2)
One thing I always think about is a multiple desktop based window manager. And no, I'm not talking about different 'screens ' of information. What I would like is new way of organizing projects. Right now, people create a new folder for each project, with all of the relevent files stored in that project 's folder. What wuld be better is a new desktop per project. Then the project files are saved in directories with the same type of files.
For example. a project might have files for project descriptions and sceduling, some coding files, emails, results, and so on. All of these files are on the project desktop, easily acessible, with a status file which summarizes your changes. A different project would have its own separate desktop. But similar files would be stored in a common directory. So all of your project result documents would be in one place, easy to find and review. Finally, you would have a way to switch from desktop to desktop.
Hmmmm... Is there a silent majority here? (Score:5, Insightful)
And all the while, each time I read one of these stories, I am secretly thinking to myself that I am quite satisfied with Linux as it is now. Linux+KDE3+OpenOffice+Mozilla+GIMP gives me the most enjoyable, productive computing environment I've ever had -- and I've had a lot of computers over the years (I was a 128k Mac owner, $3500 for a tiny monochrome scren and a 400k floppy!)
I sometimes wonder if there isn't a silent majority of Linux users who aren't at all interested in Linux-chases-Windows or Linux-chases-MacOS or Linux-needs-XYZ and who instead are just using Linux on a day to day basis and being glad it's the system that it is.
I'd hate to see this silent majority gradually lose the system they love as Linux is transformed into a Windows clone by vendors and project leaders who give too much credence to the voices of pundits (many of whom probably don't use Linux as their primary desktop anyway).
My $0.02.
Linux like Windows?! WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm, have you been using any Windows recently?
I am made to use Windows at work, and the interface is just plain freaking backwards.
STILL no virtual desktop, making it awkward to develop with an IDE in full screen mode while keeping some documentation open at the same time.
STILL no way to control, resize, or move a window at ALL if the app is busy (or frozen, for that matter)! I mean, it's, what, almost year 2003? On what is supposed to be a friendly OS?!
In terms of GUI convenience, KDE is a fucking order of magnitude ahead of Windows, man. Still much lagging behind MacOS X, but then, what isn't.
I don't know for Gnome, but KDE is freaking NOT being turned into a Windows clone. Take a look at the KDE framework, one day. That thing is fucking brilliant. Want to make it look and behave like Windows (without such retarded 'features' as the windows unmovable when busy)? Sure, you can. That's how my mother's account on my box works. And guess what, she can find her way around it out of the box. Want to make it completely different in the way YOU need it? Sure, you can. Want to lock features to make an easy to use but impossible to corrupt kiosk? Sure, you can!
What is it with people bleating that we shouldn't keep running after the Windows world? We've passed them MONTHS ago, people!
Now Linux as an OS still has some serious usability issues (primarily, there's no global software installation system that Just Works[*], that's the biggest showstopper right now), but in terms of GUI, the Windows world is severely lagging behind. I switched to Linux out of laziness, for crying out loud!
[*] I've tried to stir up discussion about that a couple time, but most of the Linux community seems to have an inertia you wouldn't believe. The answers were basically, "Shut up and use apt-get", "Shut up and use RPM", or "shut up and use configure; make; make install". Erm, hello? I can and do use any of those. But my mom and my (now ex, sigh) girlfriend can't. Now, why should it matter? Well, we want people to port their software to Linux, and that implies, giving them a way to make it easy to distribute their software in a global way. I've spent a while thinking about possible solutions to that most hairy problem, but I guess that's food for another thread. This post is long and ranty enough as it is.
Anyway. Rant over. Flame with moderation, thanks.
how unimaginative (Score:2)
i would much prefer to hear some suggestions from mr dvorak, or indeed the
how about sub factions within the open source community that help purely with the UI aspects of various other products?
Is this different enough? (Score:2, Interesting)
Trying again to replace the desktop metaphor... (Score:5, Interesting)
1) users that were running Win/Max before don't want to change their way of working that profoundly
2) I for one think that the desktop metaphor will EVOLVE instead of just being killed and replaced completely
So, clearly with X/KDE/GNOME we are behind of MS/Apple by a more or less far shot. But I agree with the author, that - as some of us still are working on perfecting the desktop - we could work on possible "evolutions" and advancements.
One thing, for example, which will definitely be coming along in the not too far away future, is the "one-program" paradigm. The general idea behind is to
a) essentially have one "framework" interface for more or less all applications
b) really driving application-to-application interaction and data-transfer to a new level
c) employ new ways of browsing through data and software
d) making it possible to access the same data with multiple software modules while they are interacting with one another in a meaningful way
e) further degrade of the data-software boundary
So I guess we COULD put a lot of things together, if only OSS would focus more on the user side...
Re:Trying again to replace the desktop metaphor... (Score:3, Insightful)
Except this is entirely WRONG. Linux and Unix are rapidly moving in the OPPOSITE direction of this "one-program" paradigm. Linux's strength lies in the ability to take one PROBLEM, and combine many different types of programs to solve that problem, using your own style, needs, etc. Take mail for example. We don't have Exchange/Outlook, we have:
You can couple these in any way, with any other program you want, to add/extend/remove the parts you don't like. You aren't saddled with a HUGE bloated UI and application footprint that you don't use the features of. The strength is in being able to retain CHOICE, and being able to remove one part, replace it, and still solve the original problem.
Lots of things put together, solve one problem.
One big thing with everything included, causes problems.
If YOU PERSONALLY, want the "one-program" paradigm, you can certainly write it. The code is out there, and available, have at it. I can tell you from a decade of experience with Linux and a decade before that of Unix use, along with hundreds of my personal friends, that this is definately NOT the way the Linux and Unix industry are (and have always been) moving.
Wait a second! (Score:4, Insightful)
I could sit here and list a thousand of other features. Automaticaly clock adjust over Internet. How did if first? You know it was Linux.
The "problem" is that we, developers, became satisfied with a command line tool.
But now time has changed. And if we want to proove the World who powerfull Linux/Unix are, we have to provide an GUI for every program/feature we known in our lovely OS, because the Authors out there dont know to use command-line tools.
Oh, the pity (Score:2, Funny)
He's right! (Score:2)
This is what I have been saying all along. I wish we could get a window manager more like Mac OS X [apple.com] and less like Windows 95.
Are there any projects out there that are really working on innovations in the GUI area? I know that RedHat 8.0 's BlueCurve [redhat.com] is a nice start.
I can only agree. (Score:2)
What do we want from a UI is the question we should ask ourselves. We want a way to start applications, to switch between them and to arrange them. An effort from scratch in defining how we human work and then project that onto linux UI would give us a good start. Computers really need to get closer to human, thats a fact. MS Windows is getting more and more away from that and linux has the chance to take the ball and run.
GUI determines eyeball ergonomics (Score:3, Informative)
Reality is, 99% of most people think in "pictures", they DON'T think in terms of lines of text/symbols in a console, ergo, you'll get a windowish looking system as the most functional and easiest to understand and use for the most people. I mean what are the options? You have a choice of a box to type in or various boxes with buttons to mash. Use circles or parabolas or some free form weird drawn "border" to delineate the outside boundaries of the app on the desktop? Have your CLI console be round instead of rectangular?
Sure, pure voice control a la star drek computer would be neat, it's still a way's away for the time being.
Standardize. Innovate. Standardize. Innov..... (Score:4, Funny)
Arrragh!
Linux can be damn near all things to all men. In some ways this seems to mean that everyone finds one thing about Linux they *don't* like and bitch about it, while ignoring everything about it they might well find they love.
Certainly, in this particular case, John is having to ignore virtually all of Linux to say what he's said here.
Hey John, KDE and Gnome aren't Linux. They're the most Windows like of Linux GUI's because they are the only one's that overtly set out to be so. Of course that means they get the most attention because *that's what most people want.* Duh!
Why not go out and try all the other available interfaces? But If you bitch, *even once*, about some other GUI not doing something the way Windows does while you're doing it you'll deserve a bitch slapping.
How's this for innovation John? No windows at all and a dozens of small "tools," rather than large "apps," that allow you to use them in various combinations that the makers couldn't even imagine, polished to perfection by three generations of geeks until they shine like pearls in the cyber sunlight?
I might also point out that "Linux" doesn't do anything. Literally. It just sits there. The *users* of Linux do things. Since it isn't a propriatary product it has no existence outside what people *do* with it.
One of the things that Linux users do is dick around with interfaces. In fact, Linux is probably the most used OS for such activities because of its price, availability and license, but primarily because of the inate flexibility of the OS. Some of this "dicking around" is going on with academic enviroments to which everyone is not privy.
But most of all John, 5 months, or a year from now, when you write a column on how Linux isn't being picked up because it's too arcane and unlike Windows, I'm going to remember.
For God's sake, pick a position or talk about something else.
KFG
Dvorak is just bored... (Score:5, Interesting)
Flash forward to the mid-late 80's. No one who was "anything" in the personal computer scene at the time would be caught dead using an x86 clone or DOS--they used Macs and Amigas which were brilliant concepts at the time, the Amiga especially literally being ten years ahead of Gates and Windows and x86.
Ironically, especially in light of the recent DOJ hearings, the reason the Amiga died and the Mac became a butt for jokes and received permanent niche status had absolutely nothing to do with Gates and Microsoft and IBM. The reason for those events was internal--for Apple it was a short-sighted and greedy Steve Jobs who did not want to license Mac clones; with Commodore it was a greedy and short-sighted Mehdi Ali who did not want to license Amiga clones (I recall at the time hearing from a source I trusted who informed me that Commodore had actually gotten a cloning agreement penned with Tandy and Radio Shack, where the company would have sold its machines in its thousands of retail stores under a clone name, but that Commodore pulled out at the last minute.) Both Apple and Commodore felt they could make more money by being the sole distributors of their hardware--neither company foresaw the incredible boom that would hit the personal computer industry in the 90's.
So it just so happened that Gates was the guy who grew up writing OS's for the one, single hardware standard which was open to tons of competition within--the IBM-PC clone hardware marketplace. In it you had dozens of companies all competing with each other to sell systems and peripherals--today there are hundreds of such companies all devoted to a single standard--the one that allowed clones--x86. Some people to this day do not understand that it was the hardware engine that drove x86 to vast supremacy--certainly not Gate's software--which back in the late 80's absolutely sucked compared to other OS's at the time. But because so many companies were selling x86 hardware so much cheaper than companies like Apple or Commodore, it was the x86 clones that were bought (most of the time Apple and Commodore could not meet demand for their hardware, which is exactly why they should've liscensed clones early on.)
And everywhere an IBM-PC clone went, a Microsoft OS was sure to follow. It's pretty simple to understand how Microsoft got to where it is today even though it was selling one of the worst OS's in existence for several years. Gates has never made a secret of it--there's the famous Gates-Jobs memos in which Jobs asks Gates what he needs to do to get the Mac into the mainstream and Gates writes back "License clones." It was advice which Jobs declined (which he now admits he should've taken.)
That's why I think Dvorak's bored...he wants something "new"...yet the only thing *he* can think of is some *old* crap nobody ever really pursued years ago *chuckle*...;) There's some inkling in his opinion that an OS should not be "functional" but "something else"--whatever the "else" is, Dvorak doesn't say....
It seems to me that Dvorak is forgetting that most if not all of the "new" ideas as to what an OS should be and do have all been tried and the GUI is the best that anybody's been able to come up with. Maybe when the hardware gets here we can have 3D holograms on the desktop that will work in fundamentally different ways, but for right now and the foreseeable future we're stuck with a 2D display (even our "3D" is just simulated in a 2D display.) And the GUI seems to be everybody's consensus of "what's best" for an operating system interface (of course some people still prefer the command line, but that's not what Dvorak is talking about.)
Dvorak talks about "wintel roots" without realising that "Wintel roots" had roots of their own which came out of earlier computing projects--and accusing one company of "copying" another simply because it chose to adopt something as fundamental as a GUI is pretty ridiculous. It's like saying GM and Ford "copy each other" because they make cars with four wheels and rubber tires. Is it really that they "copied" each other, or more like the fact that these things are as fundamental to the design of a car (or computer OS) as doors are to houses? Of course, that I agree with the latter should come as no surprise.
The trend in Linux today toward workable GUIs that happen to "look like" Windows was not intentional, nor was it subconscious as Dvorak contends. Rather, Linux advocates and developers have always worked toward creating a better OS than Windows and a different OS than Windows. But the fact is there are only so many ways you can skin the GUI cat--only so many ways to make a GUI which is intelligible. Dvorak's "look and feel" arguments are pretty funny--I thought we'd gotten past that bit of nonsense years ago. It's like saying Goodyear should sue Firestone (or vice-versa) because the tires the other company makes "look and feel" the same *chuckle* The whole "look and feel" argument was atrocious from the beginning and it's gratifying to see it never got anywhere.
Here's the thing Dvorak forgets: so what if Linux versions "look and feel" somewhat like Windows? Who cares? The fact is it *isn't* Windows regardless of what it looks and feels like. If anything such superficial similarities might actually help spread the acceptance of Linux (if the community can ever get over the factional splintering of distributions--which is the one thing that could doom its ultimate success as a competitor to Windows--but that's another story.)
I guess Dvorak forgot the simple admonition that contains worlds of truth: don't judge a book by its cover.
WIMP needs to go... (Score:2)
I don't give a rat's ass where I stored last month's sales figures, I just want to be able to tell my computer that I want the sales figures for last month and it will be smart enough to retrieve, based on metadata I gave the file when I saved it last, the file I want.
You want to see all the music files you have from a particular artist that are less than 3:00 so you can make a quick CD compilation of short songs? Why can't the system do this leg work for you?
WIMP works. The way we work with WIMPs doesn't.
A Perpetual Second Place. (Score:3, Redundant)
Dvorak raises a point i've tried rather ungracefully to make over the past four years. There are very serious inherent flaws in how the open-source community approaches GUI development. Here's a brief rundown.
1) Everyone assumes the basic Windows 95 GUI design is good. No one stopped to ask whether replicating a WIndows 95 look and feel was a good thing or not. As anyone who used a computer other than a PC prior to 1995 can tell you, Windows 95 is among the worst desktop designs ever concieved. Nonetheless, both GNOME and KDE continue to strive to mimic its basic function and appearance.
2) By copying someone else's design, youre relegating your work to a "second place" not-quite-as-good-as-the-original monicker. Programmers are pragmatists. For every hundred of them, only one will be interested in building something new, and even then, they'll probably lose interest within a few days. Since programmers are pragmatists, they want to build something they know already works. By continually playing catchup to OS X, Win95/98/XP and others (and refusing to jump ahead of them) you're effectively resigning yourself to 2nd place instead of using your talents and intelligence to take the lead.
3) Bad designs make for bad habits. Its _extremely_ difficult to break people of their habits. You could recieve the blueprints for a new GUI from God himself, and people would still complain that it doesnt work like Win95. Not because Win95 is good (its not) but simply because they're used to it. Too many people are terrified of confronting users with a new idea. Everyone wants to swim in the pool, but no ones willing to jump in first. Its this sort of thinking that causes development to stagnate, as we continually paint ourselves into a corner where nothing short of revolution will fix it. The stagnation covers everything, from the users to the coders themselves. Users are just as hesitant to embrace new ideas as programmers are in implementing them.
The ideas are THERE. There are tons of them waiting to be picked up and looked at, and their merits talked about. The biggest hurdle to moving things forward is simply getting people to believe in the possibility that there may actually be something undiscovered which if it were actually made, could change everything.
The way things are right now, its just not working for us. Its as simple as that. By pointing out these things, i'm not taking a crap on the efforts of KDE and GNOME, and other efforts. All i'm saying is, we need to take what we know and move in new directions with it. We need to be open to building new things, and building new ideas. We all have to be willing to listen, but we have to be willing to do something about it as well.
Cheers,
Geeks, Consumers, Artists (Score:2)
Dvorak made the association a couple times when referring to the relationship between the user of the x86 PC and the OS they're using. There're enough artists in the
Some things that Linux could do with the liberal development environment is improve on some of the existing applications out there. Perhaps a Pro-Tools for Linux / FreeBSD. Or making SoundStudio work with it's graphical surroundings in a way that makes it as useful as SoundForge on Windoze. Most importantly, make sure that when you click on some pixels that represent a graphic object in a drawing or a sound wave, it's getting the correct range of the object you're trying to select. If you can do that, the window manager is just a matter of style preference. If that can't happen with the existing group of x86 GUI programmers in the OSS development world, I'll just keep saving up for a G4.
Dvorak just can't make up his mind... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Too much like Windows??? Dvorak is sounding more and more like an MS-pimp. Not only are the Linux developers supposed to produce an OS that is more stable, more secure, and more versatile than Windows, they have to make it do everything completely different to boot.
And guess what... if that happened yjrm he'd tell us that Linux will fail because it's not like Windows.
I compare Dvorak to my ex-mother-in-law who never forgave me for marrying her daughter and taking her away from home. Then, when I divorced her daughter and sent her home she never forgave me for that either. There's just no pleasing some people.
The old saying is true (Score:4, Insightful)
John also nailed a MAJOR problem in open source, developers are designing applications. Developers only see things from their perspective, but their view is 180 degrees away from the typical computer user. I ran into this as a Product Manager trying to convince developers to add some features. I had user surveys requesting all asking for a couple specific features and developers say we don't do it that way, so real users don't do it that way. Major mistake, you need to listen to the users your applications (or OS) is targeted for. This is what Linux advocates don't understand. Microsoft product technically are just good enough, but for users they are intuitive and easy to use.
That brings up another problem with open source, intuitive interfaces. Just because you look like Mac or Windows, doesn't mean you are as intuitive or easy to use. Apple and Microsoft spend millions on interface research. Testing ease of use and intuitiveness. Who in open source going to spend the money for that research?
Last thing Dvorak forget to mention is QA and QE. This is an area that only get token effort. It is boring specialized work and few volunteer to do it. Anyone who know anything about real software development know just having a lot of people banging on software isn't real testing. It is also the scary part of open source. They brag about how fast bugs are fixed, but who did all the testing to ensure the fix isn't creating new bugs of its own. Again having lots of people banging on software isn't going to find all the side effects lurking in code.
Re:The old saying is true (Score:3, Interesting)
One thing Linux users don't understand is that Linux developers write applications to solve THEIR OWN problems, not to solve the problems of users of those applications. If we were paid BY users, to write software FOR users, the features and functionality might actually contain user requests and features, but WE ARE ALL VOLUNTEERS.
If you don't like it, submit a patch, pay us to help add the features you want, fork the code, hire someone else to add those features, or return it for a refund.
Feature Creep (Score:4, Insightful)
Add site licensing and this is how you get lock-in. An organization may have hundreds or thousands of users, none of whom use every single feature, but they all use different features. For the organization to replace that site licensed app with something different, the replacement would need to match all the features that they do use.
The alternative is to convince them that they don't need those features and should do without. Thats a perfectly reasonable claim, but you can understand why its more of an uphill battle.
So while Dvorak is right, software does get more bloated over time, I can assure you, no one would bother with the effort of implementing a feature if literally no one would use it. Someone somewhere finds that feature useful. Journalists love to criticize feature creep, but what they don't seem to get is that just because they don't find a particular feature to be useful in their own work doesn't mean nobody does.
Move along, just a professional troll at work (Score:3, Insightful)
Try copying & pasting in GAIM.... Nope (Score:3, Insightful)
It looks like a bunch of ten year olds cobbled it together. It is far better than a CLI but its got a ways to go still before it becomes a standard platform.
START by stealing copies of Apple's GUI guide lines. And then FOLLOW them.
he's SOO right (Score:3, Insightful)
For example: When I was working with the Gnome interface guideline team, I was arguing at length against using a clone of the "Start" button/menu - the only argument for it was "it's like windos". Nevertheless, both Gnome and KDE have this single feature that was slammed even by M$'s _own_ interface designers.
Take NeXT or Apple in contrast: Innovation that windos is still trying to copy 10+ years later.
It's not that Linux doesn't have it. It's that there are too many people that think "it's like windos" is a good thing.
Newflash: It's not. In fact, total newbies (your mom) will, given a fair comparison, almost always prefer a NeXT or Apple interface. I know my mom did. In fact, her opinion about the windos interface wasn't exactly positive.
"It's like windos" is _not_ a good thing. I'm using Linux because it's _better_ than windos, because it is _not_ "like" that sorry excuse for an operating system. If you want windos, go and use windos and stop dumbing down the better alternatives.
Linux innovations? (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux and all other platforms are still playing catch-up to *everything* Microsoft. Once Linux creates its own blazing trail for Microsoft and others to follow after, only then will the real competition from Linux have begun. When will the pengiun teach a new trick?
Linux is Embracing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Once the two are equal, Linux will begin the second stage of Extending...
Linux just might beat Windoze at Microsoft's favorite game.
Knows-something... but nothing worthwhile. (Score:3, Interesting)
Dvorak is a fool, a pundit, he is the computer industry's Rush Limbaugh. Fortunately for the computer industry, Dvorak does not have millions of moron listeners who fail to look through his fallacies.
Re:Messed up keyboard (Score:2, Funny)
No (Score:2)
http://web.mit.edu/jcb/www/Dvorak/
http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/dvorak.html
KFG
Re:Messed up keyboard (Score:4, Funny)
No.
He didn't write the symphony called "From the New World" either.
Re:easy to disagree (Score:2)
Yes, it is. And what annoyed me most is: in the end it's just another guy who's saying "the desktop metaphor is dead!". Don't get me wrong, I'd really like to see working alternatives but I haven't come across any so far. So desktop Linux really has to compete with Microsoft playing on the common ruleset (MS, Apple, Sun interfaces).
And I think instead we who develop open source software should really focus on the part of his statement that says Linux' interface are "not quite as good but a lot cheaper". If we could only decide on a specific direction we could make desktop Linux a reality.
Agreed. (Score:4, Insightful)
There are plenty of things that Windows has that Linux doesn't as well. There's a full-featured API for just about everything, and it's all standardized. There's a consistent UI. And there's things like market share and a single dominating power behind it.
If you look at this list, about the only thing on it that most people are interested in is more market share, and the folks in Debian (as one example) don't particularly seem to care a whole lot about that. They, along with the likes of Slack and Gentoo, aren't trying for a single unifying API or UI. Some people want to unify the UI but most of us wouldn't actually want to see it happen, and for good reason. I'd be pissed if someone took away my pwm in the name of everyone else.
And as for innovation, well that's a tired argument. John, like everyone else who brings it up, can sit around and whine whine whine that they don't have their new vague super UI right now, but it's a load of crap. Innovation is constantly happening on the linux side, it's just not so apparent. John can bitch about wanting a new paradigm, but unless he's willing to put up some code then it's just not going to happen. You want a MacOSX type UI? Go contribute to GNUStep and get the fundamental groundwork down. You think X sucks? Go contribute to Fresco. Ultimately, if you're going to do something in free software, in order to attract attention these days of a million and one sourceforge projects you're going to have to do something good. You can moan about how windows-like KDE is, but if that's what people want then that's what is going to get the lion's share of coder and media attention. If you want something better then no one, including the KDE team, is stopping you from making it.
Ultimately, linux innovation happens in slow stages over many years, rather than in quick bursts. It's just the nature of the beast. Gnome and KDE are racing to outdo one another in every possible area, and the users are all the beneficiaries. You can't say that these projects haven't done well for themselves. They might not have come up with the most innovative stuff, but they do each have unique ideas that aren't found in Windows, Mac, or anywhere else. Innovation also happens under the hood. I'm a Debian user, and other Debian users probably know what I'm talking about. There's things like porting all of Debian to different kernels (the HURD, NetBSD, etc.) There's incremental improvements to dpkg and apt-get, including new frontends and the like. There's the debconf system which makes a good interface for dealing with package configuration. There's things like the alternatives system and apt-src. There's other examples, but you get the picture. I know other distros also have plenty of innovations that I'm not familiar with as well and this is the entire point. Projects compete because they can coexist (as can not happen in windows) so innovation comes from the ground up rather than descending from on high every two years as Windows releases anew. Innovation does happen, but just like watching a tree grow, it's not as impressive to see in real time.
Re:the flamed.. (Score:2)
Keep in mind that a bas Linux installation is very small (maybe 200-300 MB of RAM, part of which is for swapfile too.) You can tailor the OS installation to your own specific needs.
That's how he works (Score:2)
Dvorak is much better informed than the average techno columnist and clearly actually uses technology. He is arrogant but speaks his mind and can be very insightful (sort of like Jerry Pournelle with sharp teeth and a mean attitude). The biggest problem with Dvorak is that while you love to hate him (I do) and he is often wrong, he is also often right.
Re:Try to understand before you attack (Score:2, Troll)
BTW, why all OSes use "FILES" concept? Files are a crap! It's a obsolete thing from the times when
20 MB hard drive cost $800. Why not to have an "object" as a main data holding unit on disk? Why not have good search capabilities a la database? Why not have fine-grained security control with (finally) least needed visibility principle implemented?!
People should think about creating object-oriented layer disk system as a base of a modern OS.