Linux on the Desktop

webmaven writes "Mitch Kapor's Open Source Application Foundation just released a 34 page report on the Desktop Linux market, written by Bart Decrem, who has discussed desktop Linux previously. The OSAF is working on Chandler, which the press have generally described as an 'Outlook Killer', but it's really intended to be in a completely new application category, more similar to Lotus Agenda in some ways than what currently consider a PIM (email + contacts + appointments). The report goes into some detail about the current state of desktop Linux, trends, and various limiting factors, and concludes that while a revolution is not immediately in the wings, a trend can definitely already be discerned, and they expect adoption of desktop Linux to increase over the next few years, and identifies leverage points to accelerate the process."

Comments

Outlook

[nother_nix_hacker]

generally described as an 'Outlook Killer'

I have recently graduated from Uni and landed my self a job in the realworld where to my distgust I have discovered the most horrible application _ever_ written..Outlook. It slow bloated and buggy. It encourages the most aweful looking emails and when you view plain mails
it wraps
the text like this which makes any
mails
horrible to read. Outlook should be banashed.

Re:You gave the wrong link to OSAF

[webmaven]

Oops, sorry. Thanks for the correction.

Re:Allow me to ask..

[daeley]

Actually, what I'd like to see is some OSX fanatics compare and contrast linux and windows.

They both suck! Next question?

;D <--------------- please note

Feet

[Latent Heat]

The stylized "G" of the Gnome emblem is viewing the bottom of someone's foot -- the supposed Gnome Creature.

I believe that Middle Eastern culture takes offense at seeing the bottoms of feet -- it is like showing someone your bare ass.

What is so offensive about feet? I think these things are cultural or perhaps species-specific. Why is smiling considered "nice"? That gesture among most primate species is considered a threat (especially a smile that shows teeth).

So what about feet? I think that showing your feet implies a certain degree of undress (you are barefoot in the shower, in the bedroom, in the privacy of your own house, on the beach where you are wearing minimal clothes), even in the let-it-hang-out Western culture. Hippie culture made a big deal about bare feet as a means of iconoclasm, and there is this vogue to show pictures of models and celebs in glossy magazines showing their feet (remember that cover of Time with a barefoot Andreeson and all the letter writers to Time saying he needs to trim is toe nails?).

There is a certain kind of hippie-counter culture aspect to using a G as a stylized foot sole as the Gnome symbol. I am personally a little hung up about feet, and I am bothered by it, but in a way, even if I didn't have a thing about seeing people's feet, it is kind of cutely unprofessional -- I and most other people (except for Middle Easterners who dress their women in tents) don't have anything about faces, but if the Gnome emblem was a Smiley or a scowling or wizened Gnome, we would get tired of that pretty quickly as well.

So why make a big deal about a little icon? I think it speaks to the difference between polished graphics that have appeal to broad segments of the population and ideosynchratic graphics that appeal to some software dude's personal desires, and it speaks to market share. If the Gnome people were serious about gaining more mindshare for Linux on the desktop, they would ditch that foot, and if they are wedded to that foot, they are probably committed to a bunch of other things on principle and will forever stay a tiny slice of the market.