I really don't see what the problem is with Unity. It's different from Gnome, the menu-at-the-top-thing is a bit odd, but apart from that it has some nice touches, some design decisions that are a bit odd.
As others have pointed out; if you think Unity is so bad, switch to Gnome, but I really don't think it makes all that much difference. I login to Ubuntu and launch a shell, occasionally I use the software centre etc. Likewise, I use a Mac, launch the terminal, occasionally search for something through Spotlight.
What's the big deal? For developers especially, the difference seems very small. It's for inexperienced users that GUIs make the biggest difference.
I'd like to see an official Android and iPhone app for Slashdot. Not just RSS, but supporting the comment and moderating facilities. I'd happily pay for the privilege.
I don't believe in rational markets. The problem with such idealistic economics is that they ignore the fact that participants may act motivated by emotions, by short-term interests, and by trying to 'play outside the rules' of the markets. Some people might describe this failing as simply not taking human nature into account, but I think it is unfair to tar the whole human race with criticism of the behaviour of a small proportion of the population dealing in finance.
In many cases, hedge fund employees value companies by estimating how long the bubble will last, i.e. if I buy into Apple, will I be able to sell those shares for a profit in the future? Is there another speculator coming along after me who will be prepared to pay even more in the hope that the shares will keep rising? This kind of speculation is nothing more than gambling, and relies on emotions of hope and fear. And it just isn't that unusual.
If Microsoft went ahead with this, it wouldn't be long before the technology was broken. Then it'd take a bit longer to figure out how to incorporate that hack elegantly into a Linux install process. I don't think there's much to worry about as a Linux user, provided you believe that the open-source community is collectively able to outsmart Microsoft.
Nearly everyone I know that uses Facebook hates using Facebook. So the market was ready for invasion. Hell, people are leaving Facebook in significant numbers and that's with no alternative site to go to!!! Even normal people (you know what I mean) hate Facebook!
Our efforts to promote it didn't work; Google+ has failed.
The reason? Well, there are two:
1. Google+ is a really, really, really, *really* terrible brand-name. Idiots. How does 'Google+' say 'Social Network'? In any way? For the love of God.
2. The interface is complete and utter garbage. I suspect this may have been the biggest problem.
Dear Google, you are very good at some things, but you are hopeless when it comes to interface design. Please hire some people who know what they're doing. Surely you have enough money for that? I hear Apple have a few good designers you could approach.
And now I have to live with Facebook until Microsoft launch something. Good grief.
Can't we just get together on Slashdot and code a Facebook replacement? I estimate it'll take a team of 10 people about 5 hours to surpass Facebook's design... we'll have a head start on Google if we just choose a name that is entirely composed of letters.
You are NOT the product! In fact, your time is not even the product.
Google has lots of products, but its dominant product (in terms of revenue) is the service of advertising, which it sells to companies and other organisations. To be precise, it mostly sells screen real-estate to advertisers. So it sells part of the webpage (etc) that you see to an advertiser. That's it.
I don't understand why this meme has come about. Can anyone provide insight into this? Is it because people who like "free software" (linux fanboys) don't agree with the advertising-funded business model? Is it because people who like purchase-funded software (mac fanboys) don't like the advertising-funded model? I like, use and rely on free software, and I own a Mac, and I just don't get what has gone wrong with the world-view of so many people.
FFS it's not even like Google's advertising is the most annoying that's around. I tend not to notice it and on occasion even find it useful!
Everyone understands the concept of advertising, and there are alternatives if you'd like to use them. Install Adblock if you must, just please stop spouting this nonsense.
One day, perhaps when Apple is a shadow of its former self, and Linux is a term only used by geeks and forgotten to the general public, perhaps we'll all look back with rose-tinted glasses on this era. We'll forget the patent wars, the bickering, the excessive advertising and anti-competitive tactics, and savour the thought that for a moment, consumer electronics devices were elevated to the status of art. That products were beautiful, that elegant design was hugely important, and that for a while the progress of IT was headline news and talked about by nearly everyone.
And we'll also recall that Steve was a big part of that. So thanks, Steve. Without you, we'd be stuck in the land of Nokia interfaces, of Windows 95, of 1990s interfaces.
I'd say that programming for iOS is more difficult than programming for a PC, because it is an embedded system and therefore more difficult to test, debug, and involves compromises such as reference-counting memory management.
It also requires using Objective-C, which many would argue is a more cumbersome language than something like Java (that's a somewhat subjective viewpoint, but most mobile app developers I talk to dislike Objective-C and would like Apple to drop it).
This is a bit off-topic, but the topic of "stability" made me realise that I have to restart my iPhone far more than I've ever had to restart a PC running Ubuntu. For example, I had to restart it twice on Sunday. I've been using a Linux box at work for the last two months and have never had to restart it.
The fact that I've never really thought about it before makes me think that maybe it doesn't matter so much.
It also makes me think that Apple aren't all too hot when it comes to writing the low-level stuff... perhaps it's unfair to compare their closed-source developers with the whole Linux community, but then again the latter have to cope with diverse hardware and a more complex OS compared to iOS... is this going to become a problem for Apple in the future, as their legacy hardware grows...?
1. Apple does indeed record location information (implied by visible cell towers) indefinitely, but this information is anonyimised. The Guardian article states that no physical address for the phone is recorded (others have posted to the contrary here though).
2. Google does collect similar and anonymised information, but only on an opt-in basis, to a more limited extent, and "in a form that is hard to access" (encrypted?).
So, I'd say Apple is doing something that they shouldn't be doing, and they should stop. Google will collect data if you let them, which seems reasonable. The only really objectionable part is Steve Jobs engaging in a debate on what Google do, when he should be focusing on fixing the problem with the iPhone.
> Academics skip out on editing wikipedia because they don't have time to do so.
Mod parent up.
As an early career academic myself, I have edited a few Wikipedia articles related to my work. I've also seen quite a few colleagues contribute - and they are all early-career academics too. Lecturers and Professors (for example) have zero spare time. One professor I know (and not unrepresentative) often starts work at 5 or 6am, will spend several days in an average week abroad or elsewhere in the UK. Quite often I'll be looking for him, having seen him around the previous day, only to find that he's in NYC or Paris meeting an industrial firm preparing grant proposals, or being an external examiner a few hundred miles away. Then the next day he'll pop into my office on his way to deliver a keynote. Flying to Australia for a day is something I've seen other professors do. Seriously, the idea that such academics have time for editing Wikipedia (or posting on Slashdot!) is a non-starter.
It's a shame, but then it's also a shame that the pressures to raise funds may also prevent the most experienced academics from actually getting on with their research. Even if someone fixed the system to relieve the pressure on the senior academics, I doubt editing Wikipedia will ever reach their todo list.
The fact that we are asking such questions underlines that either TEPCO have no idea what's going on, or they are simply not telling us.
Reading their press releases is mind-boggling: comments about smoke rises from a reactor, with no explanation of why that might be happening, then later a report stating the smoke had stopped - with no subsequent references to it and no details as to what happened.
The whole thing is a mess, both from a PR point of view and (increasingly) from a technical standpoint. Someone else needs to take control of this situation.
> Amazingly the damage and deaths caused by Deep Water Horizons and the rigs burning in Japan don't get near the hype. And the number of deaths caused by coal are virtually ignored.
Are you kidding? At least in the UK, Deep Water Horizon received huge coverage.
> If you're going to do something like a no-fly zone, then above all things, you have to be decisive. Either do it or don't do it, but don't sit around for weeks seeking "consensus". It's too late by then.
The reality is, diplomatic consensus takes time and this is quite a fast turnaround by the UN's standards.
Whether it is too late remains to be seen. It appears Gadaffi's forces are being held by the rebels at the moment, and with attacks on tanks, artillery and troops from French planes likely to happen in the next 24 hours, the conflict is far from over.
The alternative (of going in with no consensus, particularly from Arab states) would lead to more accusations of imperialism and oil interests. Arriving at this point is better than not arriving at all, especially after Gadaffi's threats regarding Benghazi yesterday.
I checked, and the places I've read about the danger of spent fuel rods catching fire are all secondary sources, mostly consultants for (quality) media giving their analysis.
Without going on an academic search to find contrary papers (I have a job to do!), assuming the above is right then the danger from the spent fuel rods remains high levels of radioactivity.
However, it's worth noting that fires starting elsewhere in the buildings (and there have been some) close to the storage ponds may have damaged the spent fuel rods, and could also have contributed to their melting or brought their temperature towards 850C... and regardless, such fires will spread the radioactive material from the rods (which after all, is why the possibility of them catching fire is significant).
As others have pointed out, the rods won't go "boom" but some of the compounds in the rods will catch fire, and that will push radioactive material into the air.
> you've got to be careful about jumping the gun with all of the "I'm a nuclear engineering student and there's nothing to worry about, you idiot" posts
Mod parent up.
This whole pro-nuclear stance on Slashdot is really daft. Just because you know that nuclear power can in principal be a clean and safe source of energy does not mean the situation in Japan is being exaggerated. The physics of nuclear power are one thing, but the implementation, safety engineering and management of them are another.
It's almost like astroturfing, but I'm guessing the real issue is that some posters see this as "science under attack". Defending a nuclear power that is throwing high levels radiation into the air and seems to be an inherently unsafe design (not failsafe, dangerous storage of spent fuel IMO) is not improving people's perception of science.
I don't think that the page supports your argument, and the MIT page is only going with the "official" facts, so it's a little incomplete and behind.
The situation looks completely out of control - whilst focusing on one reactor, a fire hits a storage facility. Hydrogen explosions injure (kill? some workers are missing) employees - that doesn't sound like an organisation on top of things.
However, I don't blame the guys working there, as the situation seems impossible to manage. All you can do is cool things down. That requires water / boric acid and pumps and preferably electricity. There are very few other things to be done at the reactors as far as I can see, other than make decisions on how much water to put in and where to target at a given time.
I don't quite get why everyone on Slashdot is saying "there's just hysteria here, nuclear power is safe!" and posting strange analogies to bridge-building, steam engines and the like. It's almost a backlash against popular opinion (and the fact) that using nuclear power can have negative consequences.
It seems to me that nuclear power is unique, and that it is not comparable to other power sources or previous technologies. The main reason being the lack of control we have over the technology, and there are two particular areas that concern me: waste disposal and the safety issues.
The problem is that it's not just a matter of "how many people die" or "how likely an accident is", but that the consequences of nuclear power usage and accidents are so long-term. Perhaps the hysteria is due to the nature of radiation sickness, and the fear of dying from radiation poisoning, but just because there is some hysteria over one aspect of a story doesn't mean that all criticisms of nuclear power generation are somehow automatically discredited.
Consider that radioactive waste will remain harmful for 1000s of years - just an incredible legacy to leave the coming generations of humanity. In the case of a serious accident, we don't even have much control over where that harm will be done. Perhaps you can make some argument over global warming, but it's not the case that the choice is mutually exclusive between nuclear and fossil fuels for the next few thousand years.
The main issue I have is that we don't even have answers to the problems of nuclear waste, never mind the ability to cope with accidents. It seems a bad idea to use a dangerous technology that we haven't fully understood.
Whilst the parent post has plenty of valid points, I wonder if there is an underlying issue about the way people think about Linux.
Some people seem to think that the goal of Linux is to become as popular as possible, and to beat immediate-term "rivals" like OS X or Windows. So "Linux on the desktop" is important. On the other hand, some may think that trying to produce a flashy UI to make this happen is not a good use of time.
Some people think the goal of Linux is to create the best possible OS and to hell with what anyone else is doing. Some people may think this doesn't increase the adoption of Linux, and they see that as important, perhaps they think of Linux more as a businessman might think about a product.
I think the truth is, that there is no goal of Linux. It's created by a disparate group of people with different ideas, intentions and ambitions. This is a good thing, as it produces a free OS that can be used for many purposes in a very robust way.
Linux doesn't really care if people buying hardware in stores can use Linux with their hardware, because "Linux" is just a vague group of people pulling in different directions, not a coherent entity (and that is no bad thing, unless it happens not to agree with your personal view of what it should be used for).
If we measure Linux by its use, by its deployment, then it is far more successful than any other OS in history, and is in the ascendancy. I don't lose much sleep worrying about the UI choices of one set of developers, or the hardware compatibility of a desktop distro.
Having switched to OS X a few months back, I have to say that one of the great advantages of using Ubuntu was the GNOME minimise and maximise functionality: it was so simple, and keeping a desktop tidy was easy.
I've found with OS X that the screen is quickly cluttered. Minimising a window sends it to a rather strange "minimised windows" area on the right-hand side of the dock, where a window preview rather than the actual application icon is displayed - making it difficult to relocate and quickly filling the dock.
It seems that the simplicity of Gnome's minimise functionality is being lost here. Which is a shame, as it's a clear win over OS X for me. I always appreciate how simple everything is on my Gnome desktop at work.
Perhaps they're thinking of a more "modal" interface like iOS (and to a lesser extent, OS X with its window management style), but I'm fairly sure the modal versus multitasking debate has been had before, and multitasking won.
Slashdot Mirror
I use OS X and Ubuntu.
I really don't see what the problem is with Unity. It's different from Gnome, the menu-at-the-top-thing is a bit odd, but apart from that it has some nice touches, some design decisions that are a bit odd.
As others have pointed out; if you think Unity is so bad, switch to Gnome, but I really don't think it makes all that much difference. I login to Ubuntu and launch a shell, occasionally I use the software centre etc. Likewise, I use a Mac, launch the terminal, occasionally search for something through Spotlight.
What's the big deal? For developers especially, the difference seems very small. It's for inexperienced users that GUIs make the biggest difference.
RS
I'd like to see an official Android and iPhone app for Slashdot. Not just RSS, but supporting the comment and moderating facilities. I'd happily pay for the privilege.
RS
I don't believe in rational markets. The problem with such idealistic economics is that they ignore the fact that participants may act motivated by emotions, by short-term interests, and by trying to 'play outside the rules' of the markets. Some people might describe this failing as simply not taking human nature into account, but I think it is unfair to tar the whole human race with criticism of the behaviour of a small proportion of the population dealing in finance.
In many cases, hedge fund employees value companies by estimating how long the bubble will last, i.e. if I buy into Apple, will I be able to sell those shares for a profit in the future? Is there another speculator coming along after me who will be prepared to pay even more in the hope that the shares will keep rising? This kind of speculation is nothing more than gambling, and relies on emotions of hope and fear. And it just isn't that unusual.
RS
If Microsoft went ahead with this, it wouldn't be long before the technology was broken. Then it'd take a bit longer to figure out how to incorporate that hack elegantly into a Linux install process. I don't think there's much to worry about as a Linux user, provided you believe that the open-source community is collectively able to outsmart Microsoft.
RS
Nearly everyone I know that uses Facebook hates using Facebook. So the market was ready for invasion. Hell, people are leaving Facebook in significant numbers and that's with no alternative site to go to!!! Even normal people (you know what I mean) hate Facebook!
Our efforts to promote it didn't work; Google+ has failed.
The reason? Well, there are two:
1. Google+ is a really, really, really, *really* terrible brand-name. Idiots. How does 'Google+' say 'Social Network'? In any way? For the love of God.
2. The interface is complete and utter garbage. I suspect this may have been the biggest problem.
Dear Google, you are very good at some things, but you are hopeless when it comes to interface design. Please hire some people who know what they're doing. Surely you have enough money for that? I hear Apple have a few good designers you could approach.
And now I have to live with Facebook until Microsoft launch something. Good grief.
Can't we just get together on Slashdot and code a Facebook replacement? I estimate it'll take a team of 10 people about 5 hours to surpass Facebook's design... we'll have a head start on Google if we just choose a name that is entirely composed of letters.
RS
Completely agree with artor3.
You are NOT the product! In fact, your time is not even the product.
Google has lots of products, but its dominant product (in terms of revenue) is the service of advertising, which it sells to companies and other organisations. To be precise, it mostly sells screen real-estate to advertisers. So it sells part of the webpage (etc) that you see to an advertiser. That's it.
I don't understand why this meme has come about. Can anyone provide insight into this? Is it because people who like "free software" (linux fanboys) don't agree with the advertising-funded business model? Is it because people who like purchase-funded software (mac fanboys) don't like the advertising-funded model? I like, use and rely on free software, and I own a Mac, and I just don't get what has gone wrong with the world-view of so many people.
FFS it's not even like Google's advertising is the most annoying that's around. I tend not to notice it and on occasion even find it useful!
Everyone understands the concept of advertising, and there are alternatives if you'd like to use them. Install Adblock if you must, just please stop spouting this nonsense.
RS
One day, perhaps when Apple is a shadow of its former self, and Linux is a term only used by geeks and forgotten to the general public, perhaps we'll all look back with rose-tinted glasses on this era. We'll forget the patent wars, the bickering, the excessive advertising and anti-competitive tactics, and savour the thought that for a moment, consumer electronics devices were elevated to the status of art. That products were beautiful, that elegant design was hugely important, and that for a while the progress of IT was headline news and talked about by nearly everyone.
And we'll also recall that Steve was a big part of that. So thanks, Steve. Without you, we'd be stuck in the land of Nokia interfaces, of Windows 95, of 1990s interfaces.
RS
I'd say that programming for iOS is more difficult than programming for a PC, because it is an embedded system and therefore more difficult to test, debug, and involves compromises such as reference-counting memory management.
It also requires using Objective-C, which many would argue is a more cumbersome language than something like Java (that's a somewhat subjective viewpoint, but most mobile app developers I talk to dislike Objective-C and would like Apple to drop it).
This is a bit off-topic, but the topic of "stability" made me realise that I have to restart my iPhone far more than I've ever had to restart a PC running Ubuntu. For example, I had to restart it twice on Sunday. I've been using a Linux box at work for the last two months and have never had to restart it.
The fact that I've never really thought about it before makes me think that maybe it doesn't matter so much.
It also makes me think that Apple aren't all too hot when it comes to writing the low-level stuff... perhaps it's unfair to compare their closed-source developers with the whole Linux community, but then again the latter have to cope with diverse hardware and a more complex OS compared to iOS... is this going to become a problem for Apple in the future, as their legacy hardware grows...?
According to the Guardian, the facts are:
1. Apple does indeed record location information (implied by visible cell towers) indefinitely, but this information is anonyimised. The Guardian article states that no physical address for the phone is recorded (others have posted to the contrary here though).
2. Google does collect similar and anonymised information, but only on an opt-in basis, to a more limited extent, and "in a form that is hard to access" (encrypted?).
So, I'd say Apple is doing something that they shouldn't be doing, and they should stop. Google will collect data if you let them, which seems reasonable. The only really objectionable part is Steve Jobs engaging in a debate on what Google do, when he should be focusing on fixing the problem with the iPhone.
RS
> Academics skip out on editing wikipedia because they don't have time to do so.
Mod parent up.
As an early career academic myself, I have edited a few Wikipedia articles related to my work. I've also seen quite a few colleagues contribute - and they are all early-career academics too. Lecturers and Professors (for example) have zero spare time. One professor I know (and not unrepresentative) often starts work at 5 or 6am, will spend several days in an average week abroad or elsewhere in the UK. Quite often I'll be looking for him, having seen him around the previous day, only to find that he's in NYC or Paris meeting an industrial firm preparing grant proposals, or being an external examiner a few hundred miles away. Then the next day he'll pop into my office on his way to deliver a keynote. Flying to Australia for a day is something I've seen other professors do. Seriously, the idea that such academics have time for editing Wikipedia (or posting on Slashdot!) is a non-starter.
It's a shame, but then it's also a shame that the pressures to raise funds may also prevent the most experienced academics from actually getting on with their research. Even if someone fixed the system to relieve the pressure on the senior academics, I doubt editing Wikipedia will ever reach their todo list.
RS
You can read press releases from TEPCO:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/index-e.html
These releases document the "official" status of the plant. Believe what you will.
> So where did that radioactive water come from?
The fact that we are asking such questions underlines that either TEPCO have no idea what's going on, or they are simply not telling us.
Reading their press releases is mind-boggling: comments about smoke rises from a reactor, with no explanation of why that might be happening, then later a report stating the smoke had stopped - with no subsequent references to it and no details as to what happened.
The whole thing is a mess, both from a PR point of view and (increasingly) from a technical standpoint. Someone else needs to take control of this situation.
> Amazingly the damage and deaths caused by Deep Water Horizons and the rigs burning in Japan don't get near the hype. And the number of deaths caused by coal are virtually ignored.
Are you kidding? At least in the UK, Deep Water Horizon received huge coverage.
Mod parent up.
Yes - the resolution explicitly forbids troops on the ground, but supports any kind of attack by air that will contribute to "protecting civilians".
The implicit goal of the resolution (and one openly acknowledged by British generals this morning) is to remove Gadaffi.
RS
> If you're going to do something like a no-fly zone, then above all things, you have to be decisive. Either do it or don't do it, but don't sit around for weeks seeking "consensus". It's too late by then.
The reality is, diplomatic consensus takes time and this is quite a fast turnaround by the UN's standards.
Whether it is too late remains to be seen. It appears Gadaffi's forces are being held by the rebels at the moment, and with attacks on tanks, artillery and troops from French planes likely to happen in the next 24 hours, the conflict is far from over.
The alternative (of going in with no consensus, particularly from Arab states) would lead to more accusations of imperialism and oil interests. Arriving at this point is better than not arriving at all, especially after Gadaffi's threats regarding Benghazi yesterday.
> Quite a few Arab govt's are still safe. Most notably Palestine, Syria and Jordan.
Whilst Jordan and Syria are probably "safe", there have been plenty of protests there.
RS
Thanks for posting that, interesting stuff.
I checked, and the places I've read about the danger of spent fuel rods catching fire are all secondary sources, mostly consultants for (quality) media giving their analysis.
Without going on an academic search to find contrary papers (I have a job to do!), assuming the above is right then the danger from the spent fuel rods remains high levels of radioactivity.
However, it's worth noting that fires starting elsewhere in the buildings (and there have been some) close to the storage ponds may have damaged the spent fuel rods, and could also have contributed to their melting or brought their temperature towards 850C... and regardless, such fires will spread the radioactive material from the rods (which after all, is why the possibility of them catching fire is significant).
As others have pointed out, the rods won't go "boom" but some of the compounds in the rods will catch fire, and that will push radioactive material into the air.
> you've got to be careful about jumping the gun with all of the "I'm a nuclear engineering student and there's nothing to worry about, you idiot" posts
Mod parent up.
This whole pro-nuclear stance on Slashdot is really daft. Just because you know that nuclear power can in principal be a clean and safe source of energy does not mean the situation in Japan is being exaggerated. The physics of nuclear power are one thing, but the implementation, safety engineering and management of them are another.
It's almost like astroturfing, but I'm guessing the real issue is that some posters see this as "science under attack". Defending a nuclear power that is throwing high levels radiation into the air and seems to be an inherently unsafe design (not failsafe, dangerous storage of spent fuel IMO) is not improving people's perception of science.
RS
I don't think that the page supports your argument, and the MIT page is only going with the "official" facts, so it's a little incomplete and behind.
The situation looks completely out of control - whilst focusing on one reactor, a fire hits a storage facility. Hydrogen explosions injure (kill? some workers are missing) employees - that doesn't sound like an organisation on top of things.
However, I don't blame the guys working there, as the situation seems impossible to manage. All you can do is cool things down. That requires water / boric acid and pumps and preferably electricity. There are very few other things to be done at the reactors as far as I can see, other than make decisions on how much water to put in and where to target at a given time.
The worry of critical mass is not within the reactor, but within the cooling pools.
I wouldn't be surprised if this has already happened.
However, I haven't read anywhere that this will lead to an explosion - rather, just a lot of high-level radiation.
RS
I don't quite get why everyone on Slashdot is saying "there's just hysteria here, nuclear power is safe!" and posting strange analogies to bridge-building, steam engines and the like. It's almost a backlash against popular opinion (and the fact) that using nuclear power can have negative consequences.
It seems to me that nuclear power is unique, and that it is not comparable to other power sources or previous technologies. The main reason being the lack of control we have over the technology, and there are two particular areas that concern me: waste disposal and the safety issues.
The problem is that it's not just a matter of "how many people die" or "how likely an accident is", but that the consequences of nuclear power usage and accidents are so long-term. Perhaps the hysteria is due to the nature of radiation sickness, and the fear of dying from radiation poisoning, but just because there is some hysteria over one aspect of a story doesn't mean that all criticisms of nuclear power generation are somehow automatically discredited.
Consider that radioactive waste will remain harmful for 1000s of years - just an incredible legacy to leave the coming generations of humanity. In the case of a serious accident, we don't even have much control over where that harm will be done. Perhaps you can make some argument over global warming, but it's not the case that the choice is mutually exclusive between nuclear and fossil fuels for the next few thousand years.
The main issue I have is that we don't even have answers to the problems of nuclear waste, never mind the ability to cope with accidents. It seems a bad idea to use a dangerous technology that we haven't fully understood.
RS
Whilst the parent post has plenty of valid points, I wonder if there is an underlying issue about the way people think about Linux.
Some people seem to think that the goal of Linux is to become as popular as possible, and to beat immediate-term "rivals" like OS X or Windows. So "Linux on the desktop" is important. On the other hand, some may think that trying to produce a flashy UI to make this happen is not a good use of time.
Some people think the goal of Linux is to create the best possible OS and to hell with what anyone else is doing. Some people may think this doesn't increase the adoption of Linux, and they see that as important, perhaps they think of Linux more as a businessman might think about a product.
I think the truth is, that there is no goal of Linux. It's created by a disparate group of people with different ideas, intentions and ambitions. This is a good thing, as it produces a free OS that can be used for many purposes in a very robust way.
Linux doesn't really care if people buying hardware in stores can use Linux with their hardware, because "Linux" is just a vague group of people pulling in different directions, not a coherent entity (and that is no bad thing, unless it happens not to agree with your personal view of what it should be used for).
If we measure Linux by its use, by its deployment, then it is far more successful than any other OS in history, and is in the ascendancy. I don't lose much sleep worrying about the UI choices of one set of developers, or the hardware compatibility of a desktop distro.
RS
Having switched to OS X a few months back, I have to say that one of the great advantages of using Ubuntu was the GNOME minimise and maximise functionality: it was so simple, and keeping a desktop tidy was easy.
I've found with OS X that the screen is quickly cluttered. Minimising a window sends it to a rather strange "minimised windows" area on the right-hand side of the dock, where a window preview rather than the actual application icon is displayed - making it difficult to relocate and quickly filling the dock.
It seems that the simplicity of Gnome's minimise functionality is being lost here. Which is a shame, as it's a clear win over OS X for me. I always appreciate how simple everything is on my Gnome desktop at work.
Perhaps they're thinking of a more "modal" interface like iOS (and to a lesser extent, OS X with its window management style), but I'm fairly sure the modal versus multitasking debate has been had before, and multitasking won.
RS.