Re: Owen Taylor's paper

On Tue, 17 Sep 2002, Gerald Henriksen wrote:

>>>However what Red Hat is attempting is doomed to failure as long
>>>as Gnome and KDE insist on increasing the differences between
>>>the 2 projects (and hence the applications written for either of
>>>them).
>>
>>If that holds true, then Linux itself as a viable desktop 
>>platform is also doomed to failure.
>
>Well I don't think so, and I certaily wouldn't be starting to write a
>desktop app with my free time if I thought nobody would be using it.
>
>However unless both the Gnome and KDE projects suddenly make up and
>become friends the reality of the Linux desktop is that it will
>actually be 2 products, Linux/KDE and Linux/Gnome, because their UI
>design is almost exactly opposite.
>
>Consistency is very important to large companies.  Prior to becoming
>unemployed I had to commute to work on the train and a benefit of that
>was talking to people who developed software for large companies and
>provided support.  Consistency, either in hardware used company wide
>or in the interface design for the software was extremely important.
>You screw up the consistency and you see your support costs go up as
>more users call in confused.
>
>Presenting a KDE desktop to a prospective customer and saying that
>Evolution is your chosen email client and mention that by the way in 6
>months or so when Evolution gets upgraded to Gnome2 standards the UI
>design of that app will be the exact opposite of what it currently is,
>and the exact opposite of everything else in KDE, and you will be
>laughed out of the room.  Few if any companies will want that support
>nightmare.
>
>Presenting a Gnome desktop to a prospective customer and show that
>while Gnome uses one UI, Mozilla and Acrobat Reader use another, and
>the clients in house Java apps are consistent with Mozilla and Acrobat
>but opposite of Gnome, and again you will likely be laughed out of the
>room.
>
>Any Linux desktop that will be acceptable in terms of minimal
>retraining costs and minimal long term support costs (including less
>stress to the workers using it who after all are only using because it
>is part of their job and not because they like computers) will need to
>maintain a consistent UI across both the desktop and the applications
>in use.
>
>While I certainly appreciate the time, effort, and money that has been
>put into the new icons, menus and themes by Red Hat and the people who
>actually have done it I can't help but think it is like putting a new
>coat of paint on a sinking boat.  Yes the boat will look really nice
>but it is still sinking to the bottom.  All Red Hat is done is put a
>new coat of paint on while ignoring the fundamental UI problem
>underneath.
>
>Of course the ultimate irony is that it is the Red Hat backed Gnome
>project that has caused this UI problem for Red Hat by choosing a UI
>standard that is opposite of everything else in use on Red Hat Linux
>(Motif, KDE, Java, and Windows apps under Wine).

That is a perfectly valid opinion.


-- 
Mike A. Harris		ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer
XFree86 maintainer
Red Hat Inc.