The comparison between Gimp/Photoshop is central to the linux+desktop issue, and it comes down to how nontechnical/semi-technical users perceive the application. Gimp might be near feature parity, if you don't mind writing filters in perl, but the user interface is decades behind approaching Photoshop's streamlined workflow.
This is definitely a good point, and this is the reason I avoided making a direct comparison to Photoshop, because it isn't there yet. It's really much better to compare it to, say, Paint Shop Pro. Of course, if you need the real thing, Wine can almost run it perfectly now, and I don't imagine it being very long until the handful of remaining problems are ironed out. But as it stands, yes, if Photoshop is a program central to your computer experience, you're better off on Windows or OS X. But again, I as a desktop user have no intentions of spending $499.95 on Photoshop, so The Gimp suits my needs nicely.
I've worked in a large company which uses Outlook, and there are a laundry list of features each of which save you time everyday. Evolution, etc. have nailed a subset of those features. And also, Outlook has many features which are not necessary for every user. But there is a healthy chunk of functionality which is not present in clones.
You also ought to look at the speed at which Evolution was developed compared to Outlook, which has existed for nearly a decade. While the details make all the difference, I'm giving Ximian my vote of confidence that their software will improve tremendously very, very soon. It exists as it is because it does fit the needs of most of the people who use it. If you find that something about it doesn't fit the way you're used to working, and know how to improve it, I implore you to submit a feature suggestion. The community will thank you later.
You cannot make the case that a nontechnical or even semi-technical user shouldn't think twice before going to linux. Even developers will probably be more at home on windows. When linux is no longer in this 'By techs. For techs.' mode, maybe it will expand to the desktop.
Certainly, and I wouldn't suggest that at all. I'm not going to be a crazy zealot and scream "LOONIX IS BETTER!!" when it might not for a specific situation. But for average desktop computing tasks, where $199 for an operating system and additional money for software isn't warranted, Linux is a great solution.
Of course, if you pirate your OS like a great deal of people do, then it's not even a concern.
But to be quite honest, why should linux be on the desktop?
Because Microsoft's products are riddled with all manners of bugs, security exploits and fatal design flaws and I personally am tired of using it. Additionally, I like the free software mentality. There's nothing morally wrong with proprietary software, but the idea that high-quality software like Quanta Plus and The Gimp is available at zero cost to users is enticing. Granted, the latter is available on Windows as well (the stable branch, at least) but the fact that I'm not paying $199 for the worm-prone operating system to run them on plays into effect as well.
Exactly, I support this point, and this is why I proposed "using the right tool for the job" and using Windows to play games. I am not much of a gamer, aside from SNES and PSX (which I have emulators for on Linux, coincidentally) so Linux works for me. Wine and WineX do a reasonably good job of emulating the older 3D APIs, but there's no way in hell that unless someone with serious inside knowledge of DirectX happens to find their way onto the team, Morrowind or other recent DX-heavy games are going to be playable anytime soon.
The next step is, of course, for Linux developers to start pushing for more developers to port games to Linux/BSD/what-have-you. This also calls for OpenGL improvements, since it's still lagging behind DirectX in various areas from what I understand, though IANAGP (I Am Not A Graphics Programmer).
Last year I'd have agreed with you. I had tried out various systems, with KDE 2.2 and Gnome 1.4, in addition to Fluxbox, IceWM and a handful of other window managers. It certainly wasn't pretty, and usability could've gone a long way.
My, how things have changed.
There are so many applications that do everything I needed to do on Windows, now. So you can't live without Kazaa? Download Apollon, the KDE FastTrack client. Need word processing? AbiWord/KWord are excellent pieces of work. Outlook got you down? Ximian Evolution has everything you need. Instant messaging? Gaim/Kopete. Music playing? XMMS/JuK will replace Winamp/Foobar quite handily. Graphics? The Gimp. Video/DVD playback? Xine tackles everything I throw at it. Development? KDevelop/xemacs. Web work? Quanta Plus/Bluefish. CD recording? K3b is every bit as good as Nero and is free. Web browsing? Konqueror/Mozilla/Firebird/Galeon/Epiphany. Usenet? Pan kills every similar offering on Windows.
Additionally, KDE supplies me with various features that Windows can't match. I want to save an image from a website directly to my webspace, via either FTP or WebDAV? Right-click, "Save As," click "FTP" and Save.
In addition, I paid $0 for all of the software on my computer, have ready access to the source code if I'd like to add a feature, and am not raped by vendor lock-in. I also am not subject to the ~30 holes in Internet Explorer this year, or worms like Blaster, Slammer or Welchia.
There are really only a handful of things Linux isn't better at right now, and those are very, very steadily improving. The first and most obvious would be gaming, and even though older games like Starcraft and Diablo 2 run very well under Wine, newer games like Unreal Tournament 2003 are being released natively for Linux, there's still nowhere near the selection. I concede that; it's all about choosing the right tool for the job. The second is video editing, which really isn't very good on PC either with the sole exception of Adobe Premiere. I don't touch either of these things often, so it's not a tremendous deal for me.
I wouldn't say it's good enough for Joe User right now, though. Package management and software installation still needs to be simplified for the average user (.deb should be the de facto standard, IMHO). Installation could be less painful if you don't know what you're doing. GTK+ needs a better file selector, admittedly, though I hold the opinion that GTK+ is generally worse than Qt to begin with, so I don't have trouble finding Qt-based replacements.
My older brother, who has barely touched a computer in his life, can work at my KDE setup with ease. I consider this a small victory.
But that's not the real issue. Eventually people will get bored with non-interactive 20th century music frozen into song units and start exploring ways to customize pre-recorded music.
I don't think anyone actually cares that they can change the keyboard sounds on Outkast's "Hey Ya." In addition, musicians most likely wouldn't approve of this because it makes it much too easy to "sample" (read: rip off) their work.
That's a shame then, because I'm sure at least one of their competitors, who will also be reaping the benefits of free software, will reinvest the money into other areas of their company, which will grow, while the other company which hands the savings to its executives will not, and will lose in the long run.
It's funny how capitalism rewards selflessness like that.
This comment is a ridiculous overexaggeration of the point. Ownership of the sky, sun and moon has been traced back to a group of individuals from an area of Scandinavia now known as Norway, circa 700 A.D., when they filed an international accord stating that Valkyries under their dominion had claimed the sky in their name. Interestingly enough, they did not claim ownership of any stars or planets, so it will be interesting to look back through the archives and see who did.
To this day, all countries utilizing airborne vehicles flying in excess of 20,000 feet must pay royalties to Norway for the commercial use of their property.
Oh, and whistling is also music, so any whistler is liable for up to 5 years of prison and $25000000 fine if caught in the act without proper RIAA license...
This reminds me of a situation a few years ago, with Metallica's lawyers issuing cease-and-desist orders to sites featuring guitar tabs of their songs. Ridiculous nonsense.
There are a lot of reasons why present-day children don't study the Constitution, as well as many other extremely important facets of American society, that go far beyond an emphasis on the arts. For political correctness reasons, for example, we can't have it known that only white male landowners over the age of 18 could vote, can we? That would upset women and blacks (I apologize, "African Americans") to the point where it would interfere with their ability to learn, and that would legally constitute discrimination in the school's curriculum. For a detailed look at censorship in American education, I suggest borrowing Diane Ravitch's "The Language Police" from a local library, or picking it up on Amazon if you so please.
The reason we continue to study arts is that it's one of the few things left that the radicals from the left and the right can't actively censor.
I don't mean to say that liberals are the cause of all of this country's problems (I am a rather left-leaning centrist myself), nor do I wish to sound like I endorse and advocate the views of Ann Coulter. However, in little ways, the pervasiveness of the far left is influencing our society in ways we're only now beginning to see, and it really needs to be stopped.
While I can't agree with your position of "I did something illegal and got caught, but luckily escaped litigation, so they're wrong" mentality, I do agree that suing your customers is a terrible way to grow more business. While it might net them a few extra pennies, it certainly is going to hurt their income in the long run.
We keep decrying these lawsuits, but in reality, it's the best thing that can happen in the long run. As more and more people get sued, their friends and family are more likely to say "fuck that noise, I'm not giving these scumbags any more money." And then more people are likely to take the same path I have, buying music from independent or foreign labels like Century Media or Nuclear Blast not affiliated with the RIAA. In addition to doing the right thing, the artists you're supporting actually make money off of your record purchases, and probably sound a whole lot more unique than the homogenized radio garbage being spewed from MTV and Top 40 stations currently.
They're digging themselves a hole that they won't be able to climb back out of. Don't stop them.
Pointing out these specific examples is a bad idea, certainly. But the pressing issue at hand is that the RIAA is perfectly keen on litigating everyone into poverty while seeking immunity themselves.
I'll be giving my Senators a few words of wisdom tonight.
This is really an entirely different situation, and you're underexaggerating it by using a deceptive analogy. What was the learning curve required to switch to DVD from VHS? You needed to drive down to Best Buy and pick up a DVD player for $80. Maybe, if you aren't a bright one, you had to take some time to get used to the ability to skip between chapters, pick audio formats or subtitles, or view the special features.
Manufacturers were eager to jump on and support it because the costs of pressing a DVD are smaller than recording onto a giant spool of analog video tape. Stores were happy to stock them because they took up half the shelf space. This also saves the manufacturers a good deal on shipping costs. Consumers loved them because they were visibly higher quality, contained bonus features not practical to shove onto a VHS cassette, and took advantage of their audiophile gear. Everybody benefits.
This is not identical to relearning an art that has taken Flash gurus years to perfect, with relatively little improvement over the competing product.
This is ridiculous, because the notion that women should be allowed to choose whether or not to wear a dress is a completely Eurocentric philosophy, and is certainly considered offensive to those from more traditional cultures. Such practices are discriminatory to those from a traditional Vietnamese, Korean or Chinese upbringing, where women are expected to wear dresses. This blatantly violates their right to have their own cultural identity.
You see? You can pick any extremist point of view, whether you actually believe it or not, and justify it just as these people have, whether it's liberal or conservative. The pendulum swings both ways, babycakes.
This seems to be the case. And I'm not talking about lightweight applications, here. I'm talking about the differences in speed scrolling a list in RhythmBox vs. JuK, which both contain all 12,000 entries in my MP3 collection. At this size, RhythmBox wouldn't even load. JuK is snappy and responsive even when I'm re-sorting or searching for something. With this many files loaded from the database, each application consumed nearly 130 MB.
I understand this is an unfair comparison, because RhythmBox is generally regarded as one of the most bug-laden and unstable applications in the Gnome environment; however, I don't feel that the slowdown is the fault of the application, it certainly seems to be attributable to GTK+. I've experienced similar things trying to load a directory with 4,000+ files in the file selector.
My system isn't exactly a fast one, so perhaps that's why I can appreciate the difference in speed more -- I'm still running on a 1.3 GHz Duron, although I do have 1152MB of memory to play with. I'm sure the difference is less pronounced in binary systems, but mine is an "-O3 -march=athlon-tbird" Gentoo system with prelinking enabled. I guess the significance of this will be seen as I test Gnome and KDE on different systems and distributions.
That's something that's bothered me for awhile, as well. Gnome applications were largely similar back in the 1.4 days, with everything beginning with "G" rather than a "K", but those days seem to be long past now. I really wish KDE would take a similar route, because it's really driving me insane. Kaffeine? Kontact? aKtion? "Konqueror" I can tolerate, because it's a vital part of the desktop environment, but I really don't like the rest.
I really don't like how even when it's not replacing a C, it's affixed to the beginning of the application name, as well. KDevelop, KWrite, KPaint, KWord, KSpread, et cetera. Just stop. You think this environment will be taken seriously by corporations while the applications all have ridiculous names? Give me Pan, Totem, Epiphany and Evolution anyday over that crap.
Were I still a Gnome user like I was several months ago, I might pass this off as another hapless troll. But you're entirely right -- and the reality is, even with all the usability improvements and Human Interface Guidelines in Gnome, GTK2 is still even more bloated and slow than Qt, despite the fact that GTK is implemented in "faster" C and Qt is in "slow anjd bloated" C++. I can't even begin to explain the difference in responsiveness between my Gnome and KDE apps; even the memory usage of my Qt applications is significantly lower. In addition, I gain many useful abilities: I can save files from Konqueror, KWrite, or any other KDE application directly to my webspace by either FTP or WebDAV. I have a sensible file dialog (yes, I'm still complaining about that). When I drag files from JuK to a project in K3b, they're added. Konqueror doesn't stall horribly when trying to get a directory listing from an NFS share, like Nautilus does. There's so many little things that all the "usability" in the world won't help Gnome catch it.
KDE is so many worlds ahead of Gnome in terms of sensible technology that bringing it together and eventually utilizing Gnome-like human interface guidelines will really be a breeze when all is said and done.
A team of 5 interesting, friendly people will ALWAYS outperform a lone social outcast barricaded in his single office.
How about four lone social outcasts barricaded in offices independently working on different pieces of a project, be it top-down or object-oriented design or what-have-you, that are neatly integrated by a manager/project coordinator? There's plenty of effective ways to manage a team that don't necessarily require socialization.
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You're implying that Scientologists are capable of objectively reviewing things without ad-hominem attacks, screaming and logical fallacies?
For shame!
This is definitely a good point, and this is the reason I avoided making a direct comparison to Photoshop, because it isn't there yet. It's really much better to compare it to, say, Paint Shop Pro. Of course, if you need the real thing, Wine can almost run it perfectly now, and I don't imagine it being very long until the handful of remaining problems are ironed out. But as it stands, yes, if Photoshop is a program central to your computer experience, you're better off on Windows or OS X. But again, I as a desktop user have no intentions of spending $499.95 on Photoshop, so The Gimp suits my needs nicely.
You also ought to look at the speed at which Evolution was developed compared to Outlook, which has existed for nearly a decade. While the details make all the difference, I'm giving Ximian my vote of confidence that their software will improve tremendously very, very soon. It exists as it is because it does fit the needs of most of the people who use it. If you find that something about it doesn't fit the way you're used to working, and know how to improve it, I implore you to submit a feature suggestion. The community will thank you later.
Certainly, and I wouldn't suggest that at all. I'm not going to be a crazy zealot and scream "LOONIX IS BETTER!!" when it might not for a specific situation. But for average desktop computing tasks, where $199 for an operating system and additional money for software isn't warranted, Linux is a great solution.
Of course, if you pirate your OS like a great deal of people do, then it's not even a concern.
Because Microsoft's products are riddled with all manners of bugs, security exploits and fatal design flaws and I personally am tired of using it. Additionally, I like the free software mentality. There's nothing morally wrong with proprietary software, but the idea that high-quality software like Quanta Plus and The Gimp is available at zero cost to users is enticing. Granted, the latter is available on Windows as well (the stable branch, at least) but the fact that I'm not paying $199 for the worm-prone operating system to run them on plays into effect as well.
Exactly, I support this point, and this is why I proposed "using the right tool for the job" and using Windows to play games. I am not much of a gamer, aside from SNES and PSX (which I have emulators for on Linux, coincidentally) so Linux works for me. Wine and WineX do a reasonably good job of emulating the older 3D APIs, but there's no way in hell that unless someone with serious inside knowledge of DirectX happens to find their way onto the team, Morrowind or other recent DX-heavy games are going to be playable anytime soon.
The next step is, of course, for Linux developers to start pushing for more developers to port games to Linux/BSD/what-have-you. This also calls for OpenGL improvements, since it's still lagging behind DirectX in various areas from what I understand, though IANAGP (I Am Not A Graphics Programmer).
Last year I'd have agreed with you. I had tried out various systems, with KDE 2.2 and Gnome 1.4, in addition to Fluxbox, IceWM and a handful of other window managers. It certainly wasn't pretty, and usability could've gone a long way.
My, how things have changed.
There are so many applications that do everything I needed to do on Windows, now. So you can't live without Kazaa? Download Apollon, the KDE FastTrack client. Need word processing? AbiWord/KWord are excellent pieces of work. Outlook got you down? Ximian Evolution has everything you need. Instant messaging? Gaim/Kopete. Music playing? XMMS/JuK will replace Winamp/Foobar quite handily. Graphics? The Gimp. Video/DVD playback? Xine tackles everything I throw at it. Development? KDevelop/xemacs. Web work? Quanta Plus/Bluefish. CD recording? K3b is every bit as good as Nero and is free. Web browsing? Konqueror/Mozilla/Firebird/Galeon/Epiphany. Usenet? Pan kills every similar offering on Windows.
Additionally, KDE supplies me with various features that Windows can't match. I want to save an image from a website directly to my webspace, via either FTP or WebDAV? Right-click, "Save As," click "FTP" and Save.
In addition, I paid $0 for all of the software on my computer, have ready access to the source code if I'd like to add a feature, and am not raped by vendor lock-in. I also am not subject to the ~30 holes in Internet Explorer this year, or worms like Blaster, Slammer or Welchia.
There are really only a handful of things Linux isn't better at right now, and those are very, very steadily improving. The first and most obvious would be gaming, and even though older games like Starcraft and Diablo 2 run very well under Wine, newer games like Unreal Tournament 2003 are being released natively for Linux, there's still nowhere near the selection. I concede that; it's all about choosing the right tool for the job. The second is video editing, which really isn't very good on PC either with the sole exception of Adobe Premiere. I don't touch either of these things often, so it's not a tremendous deal for me.
I wouldn't say it's good enough for Joe User right now, though. Package management and software installation still needs to be simplified for the average user (.deb should be the de facto standard, IMHO). Installation could be less painful if you don't know what you're doing. GTK+ needs a better file selector, admittedly, though I hold the opinion that GTK+ is generally worse than Qt to begin with, so I don't have trouble finding Qt-based replacements.
My older brother, who has barely touched a computer in his life, can work at my KDE setup with ease. I consider this a small victory.
I assume the repeated usage of the word "Lame" in your post title was a pun?
I don't think anyone actually cares that they can change the keyboard sounds on Outkast's "Hey Ya." In addition, musicians most likely wouldn't approve of this because it makes it much too easy to "sample" (read: rip off) their work.
That's a shame then, because I'm sure at least one of their competitors, who will also be reaping the benefits of free software, will reinvest the money into other areas of their company, which will grow, while the other company which hands the savings to its executives will not, and will lose in the long run.
It's funny how capitalism rewards selflessness like that.
And none of them but GTK2 have antialiasing.
Oops.
I'll stick with my native applications, thanks.
This comment is a ridiculous overexaggeration of the point. Ownership of the sky, sun and moon has been traced back to a group of individuals from an area of Scandinavia now known as Norway, circa 700 A.D., when they filed an international accord stating that Valkyries under their dominion had claimed the sky in their name. Interestingly enough, they did not claim ownership of any stars or planets, so it will be interesting to look back through the archives and see who did.
To this day, all countries utilizing airborne vehicles flying in excess of 20,000 feet must pay royalties to Norway for the commercial use of their property.
Steer? Longhorn? I get it. :(
SCO does not own Linux and is not entitled to enumerate the terms upon which Linux should be distributed.
I wouldn't be surprised if embedded device manufacturers were the next to be attacked, though.
Then we'd have the same situation we had in 1996, with record labels going batshit insane and trying to shut down MIDI sites.
This reminds me of a situation a few years ago, with Metallica's lawyers issuing cease-and-desist orders to sites featuring guitar tabs of their songs. Ridiculous nonsense.
It's interesting that you mention Major League Baseball, because they appear on the RIAA's member list.
They just have to warm Congress's icy heart with a cool island song.
Wait...
There are a lot of reasons why present-day children don't study the Constitution, as well as many other extremely important facets of American society, that go far beyond an emphasis on the arts. For political correctness reasons, for example, we can't have it known that only white male landowners over the age of 18 could vote, can we? That would upset women and blacks (I apologize, "African Americans") to the point where it would interfere with their ability to learn, and that would legally constitute discrimination in the school's curriculum. For a detailed look at censorship in American education, I suggest borrowing Diane Ravitch's "The Language Police" from a local library, or picking it up on Amazon if you so please.
The reason we continue to study arts is that it's one of the few things left that the radicals from the left and the right can't actively censor.
I don't mean to say that liberals are the cause of all of this country's problems (I am a rather left-leaning centrist myself), nor do I wish to sound like I endorse and advocate the views of Ann Coulter. However, in little ways, the pervasiveness of the far left is influencing our society in ways we're only now beginning to see, and it really needs to be stopped.
While I can't agree with your position of "I did something illegal and got caught, but luckily escaped litigation, so they're wrong" mentality, I do agree that suing your customers is a terrible way to grow more business. While it might net them a few extra pennies, it certainly is going to hurt their income in the long run.
We keep decrying these lawsuits, but in reality, it's the best thing that can happen in the long run. As more and more people get sued, their friends and family are more likely to say "fuck that noise, I'm not giving these scumbags any more money." And then more people are likely to take the same path I have, buying music from independent or foreign labels like Century Media or Nuclear Blast not affiliated with the RIAA. In addition to doing the right thing, the artists you're supporting actually make money off of your record purchases, and probably sound a whole lot more unique than the homogenized radio garbage being spewed from MTV and Top 40 stations currently.
They're digging themselves a hole that they won't be able to climb back out of. Don't stop them.
Pointing out these specific examples is a bad idea, certainly. But the pressing issue at hand is that the RIAA is perfectly keen on litigating everyone into poverty while seeking immunity themselves.
I'll be giving my Senators a few words of wisdom tonight.
This is really an entirely different situation, and you're underexaggerating it by using a deceptive analogy. What was the learning curve required to switch to DVD from VHS? You needed to drive down to Best Buy and pick up a DVD player for $80. Maybe, if you aren't a bright one, you had to take some time to get used to the ability to skip between chapters, pick audio formats or subtitles, or view the special features.
Manufacturers were eager to jump on and support it because the costs of pressing a DVD are smaller than recording onto a giant spool of analog video tape. Stores were happy to stock them because they took up half the shelf space. This also saves the manufacturers a good deal on shipping costs. Consumers loved them because they were visibly higher quality, contained bonus features not practical to shove onto a VHS cassette, and took advantage of their audiophile gear. Everybody benefits.
This is not identical to relearning an art that has taken Flash gurus years to perfect, with relatively little improvement over the competing product.
This is ridiculous, because the notion that women should be allowed to choose whether or not to wear a dress is a completely Eurocentric philosophy, and is certainly considered offensive to those from more traditional cultures. Such practices are discriminatory to those from a traditional Vietnamese, Korean or Chinese upbringing, where women are expected to wear dresses. This blatantly violates their right to have their own cultural identity.
You see? You can pick any extremist point of view, whether you actually believe it or not, and justify it just as these people have, whether it's liberal or conservative. The pendulum swings both ways, babycakes.
This seems to be the case. And I'm not talking about lightweight applications, here. I'm talking about the differences in speed scrolling a list in RhythmBox vs. JuK, which both contain all 12,000 entries in my MP3 collection. At this size, RhythmBox wouldn't even load. JuK is snappy and responsive even when I'm re-sorting or searching for something. With this many files loaded from the database, each application consumed nearly 130 MB.
I understand this is an unfair comparison, because RhythmBox is generally regarded as one of the most bug-laden and unstable applications in the Gnome environment; however, I don't feel that the slowdown is the fault of the application, it certainly seems to be attributable to GTK+. I've experienced similar things trying to load a directory with 4,000+ files in the file selector.
My system isn't exactly a fast one, so perhaps that's why I can appreciate the difference in speed more -- I'm still running on a 1.3 GHz Duron, although I do have 1152MB of memory to play with. I'm sure the difference is less pronounced in binary systems, but mine is an "-O3 -march=athlon-tbird" Gentoo system with prelinking enabled. I guess the significance of this will be seen as I test Gnome and KDE on different systems and distributions.
That's something that's bothered me for awhile, as well. Gnome applications were largely similar back in the 1.4 days, with everything beginning with "G" rather than a "K", but those days seem to be long past now. I really wish KDE would take a similar route, because it's really driving me insane. Kaffeine? Kontact? aKtion? "Konqueror" I can tolerate, because it's a vital part of the desktop environment, but I really don't like the rest.
I really don't like how even when it's not replacing a C, it's affixed to the beginning of the application name, as well. KDevelop, KWrite, KPaint, KWord, KSpread, et cetera. Just stop. You think this environment will be taken seriously by corporations while the applications all have ridiculous names? Give me Pan, Totem, Epiphany and Evolution anyday over that crap.
Were I still a Gnome user like I was several months ago, I might pass this off as another hapless troll. But you're entirely right -- and the reality is, even with all the usability improvements and Human Interface Guidelines in Gnome, GTK2 is still even more bloated and slow than Qt, despite the fact that GTK is implemented in "faster" C and Qt is in "slow anjd bloated" C++. I can't even begin to explain the difference in responsiveness between my Gnome and KDE apps; even the memory usage of my Qt applications is significantly lower. In addition, I gain many useful abilities: I can save files from Konqueror, KWrite, or any other KDE application directly to my webspace by either FTP or WebDAV. I have a sensible file dialog (yes, I'm still complaining about that). When I drag files from JuK to a project in K3b, they're added. Konqueror doesn't stall horribly when trying to get a directory listing from an NFS share, like Nautilus does. There's so many little things that all the "usability" in the world won't help Gnome catch it.
KDE is so many worlds ahead of Gnome in terms of sensible technology that bringing it together and eventually utilizing Gnome-like human interface guidelines will really be a breeze when all is said and done.
We're assuming that the right name is printed out on each receipt. You think everyone's going to bother to check?
How about four lone social outcasts barricaded in offices independently working on different pieces of a project, be it top-down or object-oriented design or what-have-you, that are neatly integrated by a manager/project coordinator? There's plenty of effective ways to manage a team that don't necessarily require socialization.