Re: The Open Choice Awards 2003

> This has me wondering. How did they do this Tim?
> Did they took say a 100 windows users and a 100 mac users and asked 

  No.

> which linux desktop they would like best? If not this statement is 
> wrong.

  How so?

> If I look around me, the people I work with and my friends who use 
> MacOS they will all have nightmares if you ask them to give up their 
> OS. It's my experience that no Mac user will be seriously thinking 
> about replacing their OS.

  This isn't a question of which desktop will cause people to drop their
current OS and switch. Rather, we sought the desktop with the best
integration, most polish, and easiest to deal with UI (especially from a
Windows user perspective) with the goal of determining the following:
"If a user is going to switch to GNU/Linux, which desktop would most
adequately fulfill the needs of that user?"

  Here at the OfB Labs we have both Windows and Mac OS boxen, so it is
rather easy to compare the systems and figure out the answer. For the
moment, KDE is much better equipped to replace Mac OS X and Windows than
is Gnome. Gnome isn't far behind, but -- as an example -- its file
selection dialogs are awful, whereas KDE's have the same kind of
functionality and quality of UI as Windows and Mac OS X. Also key to the
decision is the highly unified feel of KDE.

  If I go into Mac OS X, all the applications fit together. If I use
Windows XP most of the applications fit together. Gnome has had the
disadvantage of its applications coming from different sources. Even
after several years of work, Nautilus has some things about it that are
different than the rest of the GUI. Likewise, any of Gnome's
Mozilla-based web browsers will fail to have the tight UI integration
that Konqueror benefits from (just like Internet Explorer and Safari
do).

> Editors who are true linux users can not make a decision that a 
> desktop is a good replacement for another operating system.
> KDE is not an operating system, it's a desktop, a graphical user interface.
> People who choose to use Windows or MacOS have mostly good 
> motivations to do so.

  Right. That's fine. We aren't interested in that -- we are interested
in the users who want to switch and thus need to know what to switch to.


> KDE should stop this compulsive focussing wanting to be a replacement 
> for something, for another OS, and start focussing and recognizing 
> what they really are, a desktop environment for a Linux/Unix like 
> operating systems.

  Well, OfB's views are not necessarily those of the KDE Project or KDE
developers. Open for Business is mostly GUI neutral, which you can see
from selections such as Evolution, Gaim, and OpenOffice.org. Open for
Business *is* an Enterprise Information Technology journal with a
particular focus to those interested in migrating away from legacy
proprietary operating systems and moving to Free Software platforms.

  I have nothing against Mac OS X. If I had $2,999 to spare, I can tell
you with complete certainty that I would have a PowerMac G5 sitting next
to my Dell Dimension (although the G5 would probably end up running
GNU/Linux once it is supported). At the same time, we try to advise
people as to how they can get away from what Andreas most aptly referred
to as the "Proprietary Prison."

  -Tim

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy R. Butler       Universal Networks      www.uninet.info
==================== <[email protected]> ====================
| Christian Portal:      | Have you not learned great lessons |
|      www.faithtree.com | from those  who  braced themselves |
| GNU/Linux News:        | against  you   and   disputed  the |
|            www.ofb.biz | passage with you?   --Walt Whitman |

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQA/dfINK37Cns9gJ0gRAqlSAJ0X2YitZoX1GagtlNJ9TZKrDzRMJACeIPvk
CXNjqulxh8AgTvakI+25T0Q=
=l7jZ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----