Slashdot Mirror
Dvorak: Linux too much like Windows
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.
a familiar looking UI will help people move from 'doze to Linux
"just a challange to be more innovative and look beyond feature creap and UI concepts that are old and tired."
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.
He slams the Mac constantly for not being enough like Windows. It's innovating in a different direction, and that's an issue. Now Linux is copying Windows too much, and that's an issue.
I think this guy just bashes everything to get people riled up and to have people read his articles.
My counter to Dvorak's argument is that is that if linux really wants to conquer the desktop, it needs to be EXACTLY like windows(sans all the security flaws). It's much too late in the game to try and woo new users with being 'different'. We must use Bill's own tactics against him. Embrace and extend, baby. Then once you have people scratching their heads and saying "hrmm, this linux thing....you mean it's exactly like windows but it's free? What the hell, I'm gonna use that!" At that point linux can begin to forge a new path in the desktop environment; It's just a matter of getting Joe User's attention right now and the almighty buck, I think, is the biggest factor.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
This article strikes me as odd. We've evolved a user interface which most people are comfortable with (or at least are FAMILIAR with). This was not Microsoft's invention. Why should Linux suddenly break with something that works? Linux is not trying to be Windows, it's just building on generally accepted methods for working with computers.
(preface, this is not flamebait)
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.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
... 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?
Sex - Find It
Not screwed up, designed for the English language, in fact I'm typing on it right now. I dunno if it was him that did it anyways.
I like my WindowMaker. It's not a Win95/XP clone like KDE and Gnome tried to be. But they aren't fully Win95/XP clone that they tried for either, they all moved on. Gnome has multiple panels, as does KDE(ok, they keep up with each other instead of diverting, to me that is kind of pointless), as does Windows. But with Gnome and KDE is makes more sense to use the multiple panels, with Windows there really isn't a reason except to make it look better.
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 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 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.
This guy has a point. Whenever I look at the linux 'revolution', I see a crowd of zealots running and everytime trying to cope-up with M$ runners.
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!
- mritunjai
If I want an intuitive interface I'll use Fluxbox.
Saying Linux is becoming a lot like windows is pretty imprecise. What exactly does he think is becoming more like Windows? He says: "all the flavors of Linux and the open-source software that runs on it". That's an overly broad statement, if you ask me.
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.
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.
Only a few Linux distributions require more than one CD. Even those that use up an entire CD (like Slackware) have some of the more practical tools installed by default. You also have source code, compilers, etc. A single CD, uncompressed isn't my by any of today's standards, especially with all of the useful tools and customization that you get.
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.
Like a mainstream political party, Microsoft has firmly occupied the center, as that is way to maximize the allegiance of customers. John wants Linux to go off and be totally experimental and new - presumably so he can recapture that excitement of the early years of the PC revolution - but what happens is, as soon as you move away from center you lose appeal to those who don't like the direction you moved in. So John's recipe for Linux's success is really just a recipe for marginalization.
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?
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Dvorak brings up an interesting point, that interfaces are designed by coders and not artists, but oddly in the same article he says that linux shouldn't be going for a pretty look or features, merely to be different.
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.
Modular Redundancy--Because 4 out of 5 Nodes agree
Methinks that Dvorak has been reading Slashdot too much and is starting to let the Soviet Russia jokes get to him.
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
I've been reading Dvorak for at least 15 years, although in the last few years very little. He loves to challenge people by pissing them off and has pissed me off many times, yet I still read his columns.
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.
Sigs are bad for your health.
Linux needs to become more innovative. The multiple, somewhat overlapping projects are a source of strength. If linux has 7 projects, which all look like the windows version, then we are wasting our time.
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.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
It seems to me that over the last year or two, there has been a flood of commentary focusing on what Linux should become in order to be useful, helpful, nice, good value, etc. etc. etc.
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.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Comment removed based on user account deletion
sorry, but this was basically 68k of text going on and on to finally make the point that the open source movement must try and revolutionise the desktop using some new paradigm of user interface; the desktop is dead.
/. community.
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?
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/screenshot.ht ml
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I completely agree with that.
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.
Allright, that - in essence - what the article is all about. Yet, we know that the desktop metaphor is really the MINIMAL thing to implement before you can go on to other things. Because
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...
Well, If you take a close look, you will see many Windows improvements that reminds Linux technologies. Windows Update and Theme support are examples.
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.
Neither did Harrison Ford ever make a car.
http://web.mit.edu/jcb/www/Dvorak/
http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/dvorak.html
KFG
Becoming like Windows? We can't have that. Linux might then become popular or something
Table-ized A.I.
This is what I have been saying all along. I wish we could get a window manager more like Mac OS X 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 is a nice start.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Seriously, how much is Linux really like Windows when you get down to it? A highly user-configurable kernel? Not in Windows. A strong UNIX-like set of userland apps? Not in Windows. A powerful and flexible network-transparent windowing system? Not in windows. Exceptional package handling for every piece of software on a system a la' apt-get? Not in windows.
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.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
The UI in linux shouldnt be made for the sole purpose of making it easier to move from windwos to linux. Windows is not the role model i want since to much in it is backwards and messy.
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.
HTTP/1.1 400
--I mean really, how is it possible to have a GUI based system that doesn't look at least similar? function will determine form, look at cars, semi streamlined boxes on wheels. Minor differences but basically "car" shaped.
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.
ate. It's too arcane. It's too like Windows. It's too arcane. It's too like Windows.
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
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.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What is it with people and their seemingly insatiable need to reinvent the wheel? The irony is that Microsoft's OS's caught on as well as they did not because Bill Gates is an Evil Genius *chuckle* but because Gates was dumb enough to write operating systems for the lousy x86 hardware paradigm when it began--the historical fact is nobody else wanted to. (The fact is that the guy IBM originally picked to do their OS decided to play golf instead of meet with IBM representatives as scheduled by appointment, and Gates was second on their list and he was in at the time.) Literally, no one else wanted the job.
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.
I disagree with this comment. WIMP is just fine and still has quite a bit of life left in it. What needs to change is the way information is organized, stored and retrieved on computers. Microsoft, if they can pull it off, is on the right track with their new SQL server based file system. The concept of partitions and drives needs to go. I'd even go as far as saying that the concept of the computer in relation to the network needs to go. At least this needs to go as far as the user is concerned. The guts can be as ugly as they need to be but the front end needs to be transparent.
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.
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,
Bowie J. Poag
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.
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
One day he tells us that Linux will fail because it won't run Windows applications. The next day it will fail because it's too hard to understand. Now he thinks Linux will fail because it's too much like Windows.
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.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Didn't he create that screwed up version of the keyboard as an alternative to the qwerty keyboard?
No.
He didn't write the symphony called "From the New World" either.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
When can I move in?
I've thought about this and I might take it seriously if Windows even had things like chmod, chown, and chgrp. Let alone the fact that I use the POSIX ACL's , which (equivalently) brings my box into WinNT/2k territory....
Bummer, you don't see a lot of those features actually being *used* outside of corporate LANs; and even then, just barely.
Oh, and before I forget: a GUI application is part of the OS, regardless of buffer overruns?
Yeah, I could use a new house
QED
C|N>K
I have a relative who detests Windows because it demands too much of his time and attention, makes simple tasks difficult and distracts from his job objective, which is to develop digital hardware. He wants an O/S that is reliable and passive and that fixes problems in new releases rather than adding useless features. Yet he works with Windows every day. He would switch O/S's in a millisecond if there was another good one that ran the specific tools that he needs to do his work. He often asks me when Linux will be able to run applications developed for Windows (NT/2K/XP). Windows is the only platform for which the applications that he needs to do his job are available.
I'm sure that there are millions of people who would drop Windows tomorrow, if they could run their applications under Linux. They care about the underlying O/S in the same way that people care about their cars, i.e., they want them to run reliably, go where they want and to be able to perform minimal maintenance. But they don't want to spend endless hours buggering around with the O/S - they just want to run their applications.
Etc, etc.
There is often talk about Linux and how it should be more like Windows to succeed, only a lot of people think that it shouldn't be anything like Windows. Who's right? Well, both are, of course. What's success for Linux? It depends on whom you talk to. If nothing else, Linux is about choice an flexibility. Where Microsoft has a single focussed objective (profit), and pursue that relentlessly, the Linux community has many different (and laudable) objectives. Many in the Linux community couldn't give a monkey's bum about Windows compatibility etc. and that's fine. Those that do care need to band together and define a single focussed objective (and not try to do everything at once) which IMO should be what you suggest:
be EXACTLY like windows(sans all the security flaws) , but would add but be more reliable and more dedicated to the sole purpose of running and supporting applications, rather than being an end unto itself like Windows .
OK, marshal the army. But who's going to lead the charge? Linus has stated that head-on competition with Windows is not his goal and that's fine. It would take absolute focus, the declaration of a single unified purpose and the obsessive dictatorial leadership abilities of the type that Bill Gates possesses. And egos will get bruised. Who's up to the challenge?
Sigs are bad for your health.
Unless a proprietary (patented) technology becomes indispensible to the user population as a whole, Microsoft seems vulnerable to attacks from low cost/no cost alternatives.
If the CBDTPA bill passes, Microsoft will have a monopoly on operating systems for new personal computers sold in the United States of America. The wording of the CBDTPA seems to require general purpose computers to come with an operating system that can enforce digital restrictions management. Microsoft holds the essential patent on such operating systems, and Intertrust holds other patents in the area. This is yet another reason to oppose the CBDTPA bill.
If the CBDTPA bill passes, expect Canada and Mexico to tighten their immigration policies as thousands of disgruntled Americans flow across their borders.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The old saying "You become what you criticize" is ringing loud and clear. Linux is trying to beat Windows by criticizing it while at the same time emulating it to attract Windows users.
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.
Linux is nothing like Windows: its kernel, its system administration, its core software, its graphics and GUI, are all of a completely different design from Windows.
The Windows kernel is an all-singing all-dancing behemoth, while the Linux kernel APIs still mostly stick to the minimalism of the original UNIX design. Windows uses object-orientation extensively throughout its kernel, while Linux sticks with the relative paucity of APIs, again from the traditional UNIX kernel design.
In userland, things look rather different, too. The core set of applications on Linux are text-based, command-line oriented programs that are combined via pipes and files and store their data in text files. Few programs use threads. Servers can be run from the command line. Alsmot can be scripted from the shell. This is in sharp contrast to Windows, where the core sets of applications are GUI-based, component-oriented programs talking to each other via various shared memory and object embeddings, use threads extensively, and use databases for a lot of their data. The Windows design a CS major's wet dream, implementing every software feature and ad-hoc idea under the sun, while core Linux programs stick, again, to the simple principles of the traditional UNIX design.
Only when it comes to desktop software, like Gnome, KDE, OpenOffice, and Mozilla, has the Linux world copied liberally from Windows. The resulting desktop software is very non-UNIX like and has many of the same limitations as its Windows counterparts. Still, the strategy of cloning Windows features is a necessity, because people coming to Linux from Windows want a more familiar environment. Fortunately, no matter how many kludgy ideas something like Mozilla inherits from Windows, the underlying modularity and simplicity of Linux and X11 mean that those Windows-applications-clones can live peacefully side-by-side with implementations of new ideas in GUI software and user interaction.
Now, let's get to the meat of it:
So what needs to happen? First of all, the desktop-window metaphor has had a good run and has its place, but can't we try something different?
Yes, and Linux is the best place for this to happen right now. Because, unlike Windows and Macintosh, where assumptions about the GUI are coded throughout the system, Linux and X11 are highly layered: you can build an entirely different user environment on top of Linux and X11 and still take advantage of a vast amount of existing Linux and UNIX software out there. People on UNIX and Linux have made "software components" and "software reuse" work in a way none of the mega-platform-projects at Microsoft, Apple, IBM, or NeXT ever have (remember Pink?).
Linux can and does successfully imitate Windows in some of its distributions. But it also makes it easy to build completely different systems. And that is why I think Linux will be the platform where the next true innovations in human computer interaction will be delivered.
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
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.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Its a dirty word (well actually a phrase). Still, features *do* sell software. Take any full featured commercial application. Only a few users use every feature in that app. However, of the rest of the users that may only use a fraction of the features, there is lots of overlap. User A may use features X and Y but not Z, user B uses features X and Z but not Y, and so on.
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.
Bowie, this is totally unrelated the article, but I applaud your recent efforts to try to bring fresh ideas to the GNOME lists (which have been largely devoid of such things in the last several years).
Really, in the sad day and age, people with usability backgrounds who want to improve user interfaces have to arm themselves with knowledge of how to code. It sucks that the time spent learning algorithms or API's could be better spent doing user testing or reading the latest issue of interactions.But that's how things are.
Perhaps it's time that the people who give a damn about the next generation form their own damn lists where such idiots like the ones on the GNOME list don't have any say.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
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.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I used to believe that too, but then one day I went out and acutally looked for a different WM/DE. I found several 3d interfaces for X which didn't even remotely look like Microsofts experiemental one, and I also saw Enlightenment, which isn't at all like windows. I was really impressed by the way that Enlightenment managed to be completely useable while only superficially looking like windows.
BlackBox is another different design, but not really an improvement in usability, IMHO.
It's been a long time.
I don't watch TV or read newspapers for this very reason. They pander to the people who lap up sensationalism.
Most people would rather read, "I hate it" than "It's fine", or "I love it". Noone is going to get excited if Dvorak writes an article on what's right about macs, linux, dogs, the weather, love and peace... you get the idea.
People already know what they want to think, and they're just looking for a pat on the back. "See? Dvorak hates it too! I'm right! He invented a keyboard layou, so he knows what he's talking about!"
So then the question is, is it really so bad? I hate it because I think it's a waste of resources, a sham, and encourages general stupidity. But who am I to say so? I don't read it or watch it, so it's not affecting me.
And if the GUIs weren't Windows-like, he'd complain about that too. Folks, Dvorak is a shill. Nothing to see here, move along.
As a wise man once said: The only intuitive interface is the nipple. All else is learned.
By the way, here's some research about that quote. Apparently some babies don't know what to do with a nipple. Maybe they tried to right-click it?
The only reason Dvorak thinks Linux is too much like Windows is because he really doesn't know what an operating system is.
I run Slackware and FreeBSD. No one in their right minds would consider these two systems to be similar to Windows. But this is Dvorak. His purpose in life is to troll for fish using inanities as bait.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
John C. Dvorak has been a professional troll in the computer industry for 20 years. Rarely have his predictions come true. Rarely has his 'advice' been useful. This is the same drivel he churned out at MacUser for years. Please pay this man no mind; he certainly has none.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The LACK OF quality of most Linux GUI software it quite astonishing.
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.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
First, what he slams is not Linux, nor even GNU/Linux, but Gnome and KDE, that run on any reasonable clone of the C library and X Window System. That means GNU/Linux and Hurd, BSDs, even HP-UX and Solaris. And even so, guess what, you have choices. Command line, GNUStep, FLTk, I forget others.
Second, he compares to MS Windows. Should compare to Mac OS X and OS/2, perhaps Amiga.
Third, what he means by different? Appearance or functionality? In either case, it is more up to the particular distribution than a function of how Unix is. The key here, as so often, is simplicity and modularity. Unix and its clones are both. As simple as you may want it, able to run even on 80206s (ELKS), but one can add and configure modules to be as functional and as eye dazzling as anything.
The catch is, as always, in policy: getting developers and SysAdmins to code and configure consistently their UIs. Until the DWII (Desktop Wars II) settles down, and all of Gnome, KDE, and probably one or two others get stable and fully functional, including UI designer guidelines, this will not happen.
But it does not stop at development. There is distribution -- Red Hat nullifying is a step in the right direction, like taking Debian policies one step further; if and when Debian does the same it would be heaven, Debian currently does all the plumbing OK but fails miserably at the UI.
And there is SysAdministration, which begins at the distro but takes all the system life. Something along the original Homebrew Computer Club would be nice: a nice little server farm with two or three fat, multiprocessed servers in some basement in the building, block or neighborhood and people with cheap, silent, cool, visually dazzling, maintenance-free X terminals in each room. Only gamers and developers need their own systems, and perhaps not. With the Hurd, perhaps not even kernel (system) developers would need their own systems.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
The one and only feature that linux has that windows will never have. This single feature is what we just love about linux.
THE SOURCE!
Got Code?
Sorry, but is Mr. Dvorak supposed to be a professional voice on these matters? This article really was piss poor.
"Linux is teh sux bcuz it looks like windows, omg.". That's about the size of it. Just because you are using nice long sentences and proper grammar does not mean that you are any more enlightened than somebody who might have written the above pseudo-quote.
Here's some news for you: LINUX DOES NOT HAVE A GUI. Any Linux GUI is just a damn program accessing the graphic card's framebuffer as a user program. Again, NO WINDOWING SYSTEM IS PART OF LINUX. If you want plasmoid-circles, bloaty buttons, extensively large apps just for the sake of being different and having a pretty desktop, then by all means WRITE IT. Just stop bitching about stuff which any computer enthusiast who can think for his or her self has already dealt with.
If you want to campaign for the good of Linux, try standing up for small, efficient utilities, stand against the upsizing of code bases just to support the coder's favourite GUI toolkit, or just concentrate on standing on your own two feet. I'm sorry for all of the anger, but when will people learn that media views and opinions really have no place in the progression of an operating system? If I find that I can't run an essential utility because it's been 'upgraded' to use some toolkit which I don't want to install, I'm going to be really pissed off.
Everytime somebody sais: I'm still a gnome and window maker user I know he's not really using Linux, he just wants to be l33t.
If you were a Linux user, you would use KDE or GNOME or Windowmaker. Using more than one desktop environment is redundant.
I wonder how much you've used the M$ CLI. The nomenclature may be different, but the similarities surprised me - I expect that lots of it was actually copied from unix, given the time frame it was created in. I can't think of anything I can do with a Bourne shell (admittedly a limited example) that I can't do with M$.
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
While you can configure Linux to look similar to Windows (and when you don't use advanced features like multiple desktops, scrollbar-jumping, etc. it also feels like Windows), but you don't have to.
You can have a demo-desktop with hundreds of animations like MacOSX or you can have a fully customized desktop or you can have something completely different.
I'm sick of the Gates-lover crying "Linux is too much like Windows" from one side and "Linux is not enough like Windows" from the other.
The reality is that Linux can be both: Like Windows (except for complete Win32 compatibility) and completely different.
I dunno, where would you take it?
Should the UI be a big Wheel
Perhaps a Microsoft Bob ('scuse me... *wretch*
Maybe a blending of 2D, 3D and abstraction like Kai Krause used to do (where did he go?).
Maybe a highly modified version of Apple's Hotsauce?.
This seems to be like the weather, everyone complains about but no one seeks to boldly change it (ok , well the Chinese are working on the weather...)
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
perhaps on his mush filled head...
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Linux's biggest bonus is that the geeks are in charge; Window's biggest problem is that clueless users and marketing 'droids are in charge.
You see, it depends on what you are looking for. All you're saying is that all operating systems should be aimed at the same market and that choice is some sort of elitist disease.
Apple's experience is that when you aim at the users and marketeers you lose if you also try to do quality; there just isn't time to do both and Microsoft will beat you because they don't have to spend time on quality.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I'm not talking about developers, I'm talking about artists who wouldn't know the first thing about programming and are unfamiliar with the term "source code." A developer's idea of a good interface may differ greatly with the opinion of a UI designer or artist. One of the reasons why Apple has been successful with interface design is they hired lots of creative non-technical people. There plenty of "Starving artists" out there who could make great contributions to OSS but don't know anything about coding/cvs/dev lists.
Dvorak has a long and rich history of being hired to write "provocative" columns. He's the closest thing there is to a professional troll. I remember him writing (for MacWorld) about how the Mac should have an Alt key instead of an Option key. Christ.
Examples:
Rotten roots. You'd hope that the open-source movement would have made a wild leap that would get it off the treadmill of featurism and onto something entirely new. After all, we are told that millions of coders on the Web can match and beat Microsoft and its mere 20,000 to 30,000 drones.
Okay, managed to insult both MS ("drones", "rotten roots") and Linux coders "treadmill of featurism".
After all, Linux was designed for the x86.
Fair enough, but then he concludes:
This is the simple but overlooked fact of the Linux revolution: Its roots are in Wintel.
Huh? Dvorak's loved the term "Wintel" for ever and ever (probably coined it and trying to ensure that everyone uses it), but it's totally inappropriate here. He's trying to use the fact that both Linux and Windows have as their primary target the most common personal computing platform to show that Linux is derivative of Windows?
Linux has become a pale imitation of the evil OS it intends to replace
Oooh, good. Managed to piss off Windows and Linux users.
It's no coincidence that Apple, which dominates the creative-artist scene, manages to be creative.
Ummm...*what*? Apple's most famous and impressive creative moments were in the 80s and 70s, when it was designing computers originally intended for *managers*, not *artists*.
If the open-source folks just want to copy what's already out there, why not look around more? Surely they can find something more interesting than a copy of a copy of a copy.
Dvorak's such an idiot. He uses, say, GNOME because it comes with his prebuilt, idiot-proof consumer Linux box. It's crafted by RH to be accessable to Windows users. Then he complains that Linux isn't *different* enough. Wake up, Dvorak! There are Linux boxes with voice input, with 3d file managers, with only a console, hell, inside your PDA! You can use *any* of these interfaces!
May we never see th
If you are going to run any software on your Linux PC that is capable of playing DVDs then you're doing somthing a little bit illegal...
Now isn't that stupid?
I tend to think that X Windows is pretty damn good - it consists of a small kernel that will run pretty well on the most minimal machines and extensions to, well, extend itself. And networkability is important and essential - does "directfb" provide such a thing?
And, just to mention yet another bit of sadly forgotten software, GWM had a module that provided for a scrolling, essentially infinite desktop. The biggest problem with GWM was that configuring it was a major pain until you'd spent lots of time understanding it - but then it was immensely powerful and quite wonderful. (The last time I tried to compile gwm on linux it didn't. Sigh.)
NeWS (the Sun window system designed by Gosling) also provided for ways for the window system to define a set of menu handlers (though an application could work around it when needed). I suspect many, many more of us would be using NeWS as a window system if Sun had only opened the source.
I keep thinking about a window manager/ui framework similar to Pad++ or the Self ui - which I believe provide both an "infinite" desktop and a "zoom in" capability. Indeed, I keep thinking Self or Smalltalk could be used as a basis for both a window manager and a CLI with shared data (and options for non-shared data).
he apparently read a different article than anyone else. You may disagree with Dvorak's view of the available GUIs for Linux as simplistic to the point of having missed the boat, but when Dvorak stated that Linux had its roots in x86 and wintel, it was Linux he mentioned, not the whole free software movement. What he said was true in so far as Linux was developed to run on an x86. Also, the more recent GUI development has borrowed some ideas - and not necessarily the best ones - from Windows. Dvorak may even have a point in criticizing the drift toward immitation windows functionality. Immitating the windows GUI might help steal away some desktop users, but it isn't new and it isn't interesting. Enlightenment and Windowmaker are two GUIs, both interesting and different, that Dvorak apparently did not look at.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Unfortunately, the masses don't agree.
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.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I have never considered myself to have an unhealthy bias favoring Windows or opposing Linux. I have used Windows since 3.1, and I have used Linux (though significantly less) since Slackware 3.5.
While there are certainly many advantages that each has over the other, the biggest advantage that Windows offers to me is insanely greater practical interoperability -- the type of interoperability that connects me with the people I want to be connected with. People I know use Microsoft Internet-ware. My school and place of employment use Microsoft Office. Everywhere I need to be on my computer, Microsoft can get me there. I'm not operating a server, nor will I from a cable modem.
Certainly, Windows is the most popular. Just as certainly, Linux is gaining ground in the home desktop market. But I think Linux/UNIX systems are and will remain dominant in the server market, and Windows systems will remain dominant in the home market. And as long as I am not operating a business that needs 24/7 secure operation, Windows does everything I need it to do, and then some.
And I can't underestimate the bias generated by familiarity with scores of Windows-based applications....
A good feature of Unix, and clones like Linux, is the powerful command line, simple yet powerful modular tools, and easy to use and parse text files. Even the GUI should be this way, such as a simple GUI like pwm that gives you simple menus, configurable from a very easy to read text file, and stays out of your way. Of course, pwm is probably not for everyone; so you can pick another window manager - another feature of Unix, customization, that commercial Linux distros are trying to reduce with controversial and often buggy results.
At this time, Linux does not push hardware innovations that Windows users want Microsoft to follow. It also does not have any software that anyone is craving for, especially now with Cygwin and many open source packages compilable for Win platforms. There are no Linux games that Windows users are slaving after, nor is there any Tux-box lining people up at stores for Christmas. There are no killer embedded-Linux devices being sold that are not already being sold as embedded Windows-2000/XP devices. Linux PDAs are not doing anything different than Palm or PalmPCs.
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?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
First he says we need more features:
Um, what features is he talking about? Currently linux could take on windows regarding features and flexibility, for the most part except a few key programs, except for the ease of use segment.
Does anyone seriously believe that feature bloat is what we are missing? Do you want an animated paper clip? Features that users never use in 90% of the cases? Features that put you on the upgrad treadmill for years on end and cost money.
Second part - we need to be less like windows. Need an innovative metaphor instead of the desktop blah blah blah.
Um, no. There are enough metaphors, what we could use is some consistency among interfaces, but please keep the metaphors under lock. Unless a holograpchic 3d screen becomes standard, I like the desktop example just fine.
Be less like windows, well we have a CLI that actually use. And why be less like Windows? Familiarity breeds fondness, why make people relearn everything, lets adjust to them a little bit and make small logical fixes and steps to something better over time.
If Dvorak is so bored, which I suspect he is too, then maybe he should get off his ass and learn to do something productive and rewarding, like design software and/or write code. There's no more boring a place to be than the middle of the peanut gallery.
It was a simple mistake. You needn't rub it in. ;)
And yes. I do know the difference.
The greatest trick Microsoft ever played was convincing the world that it's software was secure.
It's been a long time.
As someone who has been working with older Apple hardware quite a bit recently, I have to say that Apple has only *now* gotten their UI to a respectable level with OSX.
In all the previous verisons of MacOS, I just don't see where all the "user-friendliness" really was?
First and foremost, the older MacOS UI had the really nasty issue of making it too hard to tell which apps were still running. (EG. User double-clicks on a document to read it. SimpleText launches and shows them said document. User closes the document itself, but doesn't realize SimpleText is still running with 0 documents open. Since very little visual indication is given to user that it is indeed running, he/she can easily go about doing other things on the Mac for hours and not notice it's still wasting memory and resources.)
MacOS also made it too confusing to select the proper folder to save/download/install files in. (EG. If you have multiple hard drives and want to save on the one that didn't come up by default, you had to get there in 2 steps. First, select "Desktop", and *then* select the drive you wanted from the dialog box.)
On top of all of this, they never had the foresight to offer an actual file manager. MacOS sorely needed some sort of built-in utility that would show "tree" style folder lists and easily allow copying/moving/deleting groups of files.
Therefore, I'm not sure Linux wants to copy Apple's way of building GUIs. It seems to me it took Apple *far* too long to provide obviously needed functionality and features.
So the author of the article is irritated and instead of searching and finding the real source of his irritation he turns around and kicks the dog (Linux in this case.)
The GUI interface as it exists now is result of, what, 30+ years of research, experimentation and implementation? Why can't it get better? Here's a clue: the interface "bottleneck" is between the hardware and the wetware.
We'll get better/different user level interfaces when we get better better/different connectivity between the human and the machine.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
X-Windows doesn't have a monopoly on network transparent UIs. Fresco, one project working on a high-quality UI, is also network transparent.
is looking like OSX a bad thing? Windows I can understand though.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
"They come in as newspaper men, trained to get the news and eager to get it; they end as tin-horn statesmen, full of dark secrets and unable to write the truth if they tried."
--H.L. Mencken
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Linux is matching Windoze feature for feature till they are identical. It must do this to be a viable alternative to Windoze, which is what Linux's developers appear to want.
Once the two are equal, Linux will begin the second stage of Extending...
Linux just might beat Windoze at Microsoft's favorite game.
We are making Linux "more like windows" for 1 simple reason: the most significant cost per seat in any computer installation is not the cost of the software or the hardware, it's the cost of the user training. If Linux looks and feels like the interface almost everybody is already used to, then retraining costs are smaller, and more people are likely to adopt it. That Dvorak doesn't see this only proves what I've been saying for years: "Dvorak is an idiot!"
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I've been thinking about this at great length for the past year or so. The W.I.M.P. interface is going to be with us for a while no matter what we think of it. It will evolve and get enhanced by other developments in input devices (eye tracking, speech recognition, humanoid virtual androids, etc..), but will probably largely remain the same. The real "innovations" (for lack of a less used word) are to be had in new approaches to using the computer to actually get work done.
:) But, the only input devices we have are still limiting. The closest thing I've seen to something useful for text input is "Dasher". Combine this with eye tracking and I think you have a great solution for portable computing with no need for KB, twiddler, or the like. The other thing I think we should be looking at is the possibility of CLIs actually learning what we do most and creating aliases based on those actions with notification that we have a new alias that we can use for those actions. The other possibility is textual access to that same DB that the normal users would have in the GUI. This DB would allow us to use our machines in CLI mode with automatic suggestions for related commands, data, services appearing in a "scratch" location on the CLI for the machine's "stream of consiousness". It would become symbiotic. As we learn about our machines, and our machines learn about us, we augment each other. And THAT is what we should be working towards: computers that augment us as individuals while being as transparent or intrusive as the user desires.
Unfortunately, I think Microsoft has us in a bad spot right now. I've heard rumours for a while that one of their big projects is some kind of storage/document management system. When you think about it, this makes sense for the business world as the "next big thing" because the suits don't care about data formats and don't WANT to learn about what type of data is compatible with other data. If my hunch is correct (based on the info I've seen in various spots on the net) they are planning to make a transparent, centralized (within an enterprise) mass data storage system that completely abstracts data from file formats. More then likely, the end result will be based on that DB centered filesystem we've been hearing about. So when a user creates data, whether it's graphic, text, audio, etc... it all goes into this DB with approapriate links drawn automatically between the different data. The user never has to think about file formats. They just create their data (which they will likely think of as "documents" with no type) and save it to their published "Folder". The filesystem/OS will take care of all the data type matching. Exchange and Windows XP for Pen Computing are the first glimpses at this kind of thing.
If we really want to get something new happening, we really have to start thinking about a few items:
1. Computers (even with W.I.M.P.) force people to interact in non-human ways.
2. To be truly efficient, every task that a computer could be used for requires different UI approaches to be "optmized" for that use. (Witness the turnkey systems out there for the button pushing monkeys to use)
3. You either have maximum flexibility and number of features at the cost of true ease of use, or you limit your user to make things easier to use. There is no compromise.
To tackle the first point: People have been working for so long on trying to make computers "user friendly" that they've added so many things that actually cripple the user. As Neal Stephenson pointed out in his essay, "In the Beginning There Was Command Line", many metaphors actually prevent the new device from being used to it's full potential. He had an example of a steam powered car that used reigns for steering because it was something people were familiar with. However, it's obvious to us now that the steering wheel (while a new concept) was actually the better interface. I think we need to question whether we really need to hold onto a lot of the metaphors in use today. Should we try and meet our machines halfway, especially since their eventual role will probably be to augment us in many ways? Or maybe we should come up with new, less limiting metaphors? I think it will all come down to how each individual uses their computer.
I know that I feel very limited by GUIs these days. It doesn't matter if it's Windows, Linux or MacOS. I've used them all and can easily move between all of them since they really aren't different at all anymore. However, I do get a lot more usability and flexibility from the CLI for the way I use my machines. Still... the CLI is limiting too. The time to integrate CLI and GUI into something more cohesive than just running an xterm in X, or CMD in Explorer has come. Why don't we have a CLI that has modern text editing facilities. There are many times when I wish I could do a text search through the text in my scrollback buffer. Or how about being able to "drag and drop" filenames to directories in a CLI window, instead of having both a GUI file manager and a CLI open? Or dragging a console command line out of a script you're editing to the desktop and having a new CLI window (or maybe a new tab if you have an MDI capable CLI) pop up with the line ready to execute by pressing enter. Or maybe a way to use the command history to create new scripts easily? Just arrow up to the commands you just used and tag them in the order you want them and have them output to a new script in your home dir. These are basically shortcuts that could make CLI life a lot easier. However, this still barely touches the real issue.
The real problem is that the computers (with ANY UI) still force users into limited ways of interacting and thinking. To manage your files, you have to think in hierarchical fashion even if that ISN'T the way that you work with real paper/books/printouts, etc... File management should be approached in a much different way than it is currently. (Most users I know never even touch their file managers unless they are going to read a floppy.) The "search" tools that many GUIs provide this to some extent, but it's only ephemeral. A search is not a permanent record of a state. The only "views" that we currently have in a GUI are limited to the way that a computer "tech" thinks, not a user. In fact, the very use of the word "file" may be an impediment to using a computer in the most efficient way.
If we take a more object based view. The data would make a slight transformation from "graphic image file" to simply; "Picture" regardless of the format. Text data would no longer be the mish-mash of formats that it currently is (ASCII text, "DOC", RTF, PDF). It would instead become "Letters", "Articles", "Recipes", "Source Code" "Personal Photos", "Promotional Pictures", etc...
Instead of the user arranging folders that contain all of these categories, the OS would already have a pre-ordered layout of filing by these categories. However, this would not be the normal folder structure that a filesystem uses, but it would be a database that manages the underlying filesystem. As new applications get installed, more categories for those apps get added if they don't already exist. When the user opens their personal information store, they would be presented with a list of the categories (with a bias towards the most often used types) to scan through. Once they select the ONE category they are interested in, all other categories dissapear from the list and a new interface is presented with the option to search for a specific document or select a "view". The "view" could be chronological, alphabetical, or relational. If they pick chronological, their choices can be Today, Yesterday, Within the Past Week/Month/Year, Specific Date. If they pick alphabetical, they get the options for Forward/Reverse order, or Specific Letter - Forward Reverse (Ablilities, Accidental, Actionable...). It they pick relational, they can select a specific document and it will present them with a "web" of all related documents on their system, network, or corporate enterprise. This is just a simple illustration of "what could be" for the typical end user. Let's take a look now at what could be for the advanced user.
A lot of times, I find myself with a strong desire to have access to my machines, but being limited by the other things I need to do in daily life. The concept of the wearable computer appeals more and more.
My second point is that depending on how you use your machine, certain UI/input device combos may be more efficient than a "one size fits all" approach. For instance a musician may want to use a computer with a KB, Mouse and a real mixing board input device for virtual studio work. Or an artist might want to use a tablet interface that allows them to draw on screen just as on paper. One of the things that Linux has going for it in this way is that you really could make dedicated distros for different types of work. This would be a great way to usurp Windows from certain arenas since MS would likely never take this appraoch as it would cost too much. But it needen't cost as much for Linux. The freedom it would allow for in UI design would be incredible. Imagine the new kinds of tools and approaches that could be created without being fettered by a "desktop" metaphor. This is where I think some extra specialized work needs to be done: hardware input devices. If we can get Linux to support as many input devices as possible, and combine that with very specific task focused distros (or a distro with "task plug-ins"), we could gain more acceptance in specialized fields.
The third factor is how much power to actually give the user. As we've all seen with the various W.I.M.P. interfaces out there, having more than one way to do something is great, but it gets in the way of user friendliness. I've seen plenty of people get EXTREMELY confused by seeing that they could minimize a window by clicking on the _ widget OR by left clicking on the application's window menu on the left side and selecting "Minimize", or by right clicking on the application's listing in the task menu and right clicking to select "Minimize", or... you get the picture. While it's nice to have all those options (especially as the user becomes more adept, it's likely to confuse the user). I still wonder why no one has taken notice of Nautilus' old (weak, but clueful) approach of having different modes: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced. Someone need's to sit down and figure out what the easiest GUI thing for most users to do is and pick that ONE approach for a function. Then all of those simple approaches would become the "Beginner" settings. The "Intermediate" settings could incorporate other GUI based approaches that are less commonly used but might be preferred by a more intermeidate user. And the KB shortcuts (there should be one for every function in the GUI) are left to the "Advanced" user mode.
Instead of completely removing features to try and avoid confusing the user, the features should be categorized thoughout all apps and the OS environment into categories of some kind to limit what a beginning user is exposed to. Some people will never break past that, and that is fine. Others will want to explore and learn more. Either way... the real goal needs to be more humanization of the UIs, and more machination of the humans.
Un-news
you can never go wrong with a post that compares operating systems to cars...
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Dvorak knows something about computers, specifically desktops. Apparently he knows nothing about the rest of it, or he would have discussed the thousands of creative uses of Linux, in server clusters, network appliances, embedded devices of all shapes and sizes, incredible server clusters, renderfarms, the list goes on and on. He also ignores the numerous interface projects, both 2D WIMP enhancements, and the 3D interfaces that Windows does not have.
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.
Sorry to get a little "Jerry Seinfeld", but, what is the deal with all these so-called pundits making completely retarded assertions. Yet the ploy works, again and again, as shown in the posting of articles and replies to the articles, jesus christ, my brain wants to explode reading some of this drivel, such as, "Linux is too much like Windows" where is this article published like Dumbass Digest or something? As someone who has used both Windows and Linux, I can tell you, Linux is almost nothing like windows, what, both run on hardware, wow, ooh big similarity, STFU. Next week I am going to submit an article to /. entitled "How a ball of yarn is too similar to a bowl of Campbell's reduced sodium tomato soup" God damnit, like the article a few months ago about how software development is dead, shut up no it isn't is how my summation of the article would read, and that would be even on a slow news day. If my post sounds ranty and disconnected, forgive me, it is like four in the morning. But my position remains the same.
I hate sigs.
Cruise on over to NooFace to check out some news on UI design. This guy started this Slashdot cloned space so that we could discuss alternate user interfaces. It looks pretty promising, just needs a few more users.
One thing I am interested in is getting rid of WIMP. I don't know what to replace it with (if I did, I would probably be a rich/famous man!), but I tend to like the zooming interface concept. This is where everything is all laid out in a single plane and you just zoom in and out on different areas to get where your going.
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
I hate Grammar Nazi's
Hmm... Well, here's the thing. Right now, I'm working with a group of folks who are trying to refurbish old Macs for use in daycare/childcare facilities.
What I've observed is that both the kids (who have no real previous computer experience at all) and the teachers/faculty (who may or may not be "computer literate" at all) are struggling with the MacOS UI problems I pointed out.
They often run into low-memory situations where the machines freeze up and have to be rebooted, all because of shareware games (such as Mackman - a PacMan clone) that get launched, and then are believed not to have run because they didn't notice the menu bar at the top changing to offer "Play new game" options and the like.
The Windows method of encapsulating apps within panes makes it more obvious that the user has run the app. To me, that's more important for beginners than someone's theory of operation that says it's best to keep things on the edge of the work-surface.
Sure, anyone with some knowledge of the UI can learn the MacOS hot-keys (aka. Command-D). That's great - but it doesn't come naturally to the absolute beginner - and that's who Apple claimed their systems were designed for.
In all fairness, I can think of a few Windows-isms that would be equally confusing to the newb. The great thing about Mac OS 8-9 is the ability to enable native "At Ease" in every build. It's an ultra-simplified UI that can prevent a user from running too many apps concurrently if administered properly. Different levels of user can be administered with various accounting bundles such as MacAdmin and Apple's own tools built in to OS X Server.
I've seen simmilar "lockdown" packages for MSWindows that would make me want to chisel my eyeballs out with an ice-pick if I was subjected to them as a total n00b, but I'm sure there are at least a couple that cover enough bases...
I hate Grammar Nazi's