Slashdot Mirror
Does the Linux Desktop Innovate Too Much?
jammag writes "The Linux desktop has seen major innovation of late, with KDE 4 launching new features, GNOME announcing a new desktop, and Ubuntu embarking on a redesign campaign. But Linux pundit Bruce Byfield asks, do average users really want any of these things? He points to instances of user backlash, and concludes 'Free software is still driven by developers working on what interests or concerns them. The problem is, the days when users of free software were also its developers are long gone, but the habits of those days remain. The result is that developers function far too much in isolation from their user base.' Byfield suggests that the answer could be more user testing."
Isn't this just like the question: What would you prefer to do, kill babies for a living, or just eat them?
I strongly disagree with the idea of 'innovation' in a linux desktop. If they were that good, they'd come out with a distro named after a fruit, and have a logo using the fruit, possibly even with a bite out of it.
...but I view that behaviour as pretty much on the same level as the grammar-nazis here on slashdot...
Technically "Slashdot" should start with a capital letter since it is a proper noun. ;)
Yours sincerely, a spelling/grammar/punctuation-Nazi.
>_>
*ducks*
Disclaimer: I probably screwed something up there; feel free to call me out on it.
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
How is trying to imitate something else as much as you can - innovating?
Users can become developers... very easily, if they want to and have the time to learn things properly.
The languages themselves aren't hard, but to explain exactly what you want to do in a programming language in an efficient manner, can be depending on the task
Also this configurability you speak of, with many non developers doing it, would more or less confuse people. We already have enough people bitching about "there is no standard blah" with only a few well done options available that service different needs.
And isn't this exactly what the whole Object-Oriented and Component Programming revolution way back in the 80s was supposed to be about? Reusable code? Why didn't it happen?
It did happen, but if you cannot express yourself well with what you want to do in a programming language, it's not much use to you is it?
You seem to think everything should be push button and it will work the way I want, there are serious implementation issues to that, and even if you did pull it off, people would not be happy with it since when they pushed the button, it did not do EXACTLY as they were expecting to.
a spelling/grammar/punctuation-Nazi.
Of course! Semantically speaking, there shouldn't be a hyphen there.
*ducks*
Note: I was 13 when I wrote most of this. Take with several grains of salt.
Latin? For real? But... why?
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
I'm not very successful with women. Could it be that I'm just /too/ attractive? Hmm...
Not to mention that as someone who worked in support once upon a time, that level of configurability would be a NIGHTMARE.
Rep: "Click on the balloon icon?"
Customer: "The what?"
Rep: "The icon next to the ruler."
Customer: "Oh. I made mine look like a pony. I love ponies.".
Rep: "Whatever. On the window that pops up go to the formatting tab."
Customer: "I don't see it. What's it do?"
Rep: "It lets you change how your text looks.".
Customer: "OH THAT. I renamed it to 'How stuff looks.'. I drug it over to that 'About' window too, because how my file looks is kinda like what it's about, you know?"
Just look at what most users DO do with the customization options they're given. Mind you, not Slashdoters who want to "tweak for optimum performance" (which is only true for half of them - the other half will do things like transparent terminal windows that must get dragged into just the right positions for the most 1337 UI screenshot they can devise), I mean your standard old cubicle bound office worker. They don't try to make anything more efficient or fluid. No, they have a pile of icons scattered around their desktop with kitten wallpapers, dinosaur cursors, yellow/pink/neon green color schemes, and cows mooing at them when they throw something in the trash.
Just as I wouldn't want to sell these people a TV that had an easy access panel and included a soldering iron and modding options, I wouldn't want to give them software that's TOO easily changed either.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain