[ale] Linux bashed by Apple?

[James Sumners]

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 9:03 AM, Byron Jeff <byronjeff at mail.clayton.edu> wrote:
>>    The idea behind free software is that we are free to innovate and make a
>>    better product because of it.  Take that away and we're nothing more than
>>    another Apple or Microsoft.  YMMV but to each their own.  I for one do find
>>    frustration in the recent convolutions of the DE market; but who says I have
>>    to embrace their change?  I roll my own and like it that way...so to this I
>>    say (IMHO); compete and bring new technologies to bear in the free market of
>>    GNU/Linux.
>
> The point is in that divided market, that no single consistent UI will ever
> emerge. It'll always be a churn of desktops and distributions with no hope
> of a consistent out of the box experience.
>
> So at the end of the day, there's lots of innovation. However, without a
> consistent theme, there's little hope of getting enough market share to
> move developers for the masses to start to contribute.
>
> I'm not saying that it's good or bad. I'm just saying that it's not
> possible to have it both ways. I too would rather have the flexibility to
> choose.


I suppose I'm saying it is "bad" if you are one who wants to see the
mythical "Linux desktop" take hold and have the same sort of success
as OS X.

Before I made the switch, I ran at least the following for some
significant amount of time as my desktop interface (in no particular
order): GNOME 0.x, GNOME 1.x, GNOME 2.x, KDE 1.x, KDE 2.x, KDE 3.x,
Fluxbox, E16, XFCE, ratpoison, ROX and probably some others. Of that
list, E16 was my favorite. I used E16 for several years, but
eventually switched full time to GNOME in hopes of getting some
consistency. However, I still had to have KDE libraries (not just Qt)
installed to use programs like K3b. Of course, when running stuff like
K3b under GNOME stuff would break. Some examples: copy and paste, font
families and sizes, antialiasing settings, theme colors, GUI widgets,
etcetera. Eventually I gave up on trying get consistency and opted for
ease of use and speed and switched to XFCE.

All that is to illustrate that I understand the ecosystem of the Linux
desktop. It was my primary desktop for a long time. I loved it. But
there came a time when I couldn't afford to deal with everything it
entails. That's a luxury for people with free time.

Every desktop environment has faults. There are things with the OS X
desktop that get in the way, so to speak, but they are far fewer. And
the changes to the OS X desktop evolve over time with plenty of
advance warning to the developers. Any API, that is documented, that a
developer might be using and is going to be eliminated will be clearly
marked as deprecated for at least one release of the OS. So, while OS
10.0 might be equivalent to GNOME 2.x and OS 10.8 to GNOME 3.x, the
change didn't happen (literally) over night. It was a planned,
_gradual_, progression. This allowed both developers _and_ users to
make the necessary adjustments.

N.B. I'm still using OS 10.7 because there are things about 10.8 that
put me off. I fear that, eventually, there will come a time when I
will need to switch again and I don't see anywhere else to go right
now.


-- 
James Sumners
http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts
pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it
is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become
drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)
CH:D 59