[clue-tech] Novell desktop demos

[Dennis J Perkins]

On Sat, 2006-02-04 at 16:58 -0700, Matt Gushee wrote:
> Matt Gushee wrote:
> 
> > Okay, it's very pretty. If you're looking for serious innovation, try here:
> 
> Hmm ... I suppose that was a bit harsh. I have no problem with people 
> developing cool visual effects for the desktop. And all other things 
> being equal, I'd certainly rather have a beautiful desktop than an ugly 
> one. I've just gotten very weary of those who pretend that this activity 
> is going to bring about The Revolution (I don't mean you, Dennis; I'm 
> talking mainly about the marketroids). As for impressing Windows users 
> ... I've met people who would be very impressed by this kind of stuff. 
> They're the ones who think "Linnucks is gay" because it doesn't support 
> their favorite games or the very latest video codecs. Meanwhile, most of 
> the users I know run one application at a time, maximized, and start to 
> panic when some command doesn't appear in the expected place in a menu.
> 
> If anyone were to ask me, I'd say, let Microsoft own the 
> desktop-as-we-know-it. Meanwhile, the free software community should put 
>   its energy into developing the next paradigm in human-computer 
> interaction. WIMP may last another 5, 10, or 50 years, but not forever. 
> And Microsoft isn't going to take the lead, because they've got their 
> hands full developing products for the short term. And even though 
> they're ungodly good at buying time with vaporware, even they have to 
> put up or shut up before very long.
> 

I like the screenshots of SymphonyOS.

When I suggested showing the demos to Windows users, I was thinking of
Microsoft's claims for innovations.

I don't think Novell has invented new technology but they seem to have
packaged some of them and included them in their desktop.  Some of the
work done for freedesktop is probably more important, such as HAL and
dbus.

One of my bosses is a marketroid.  He makes claims about new features in
one of our products that it cannot do.  It could if I had been told that
they want to make these claims so I could write the necessary code, but
even then there are side effects that must be considered carefully.  No
amount of hand waving will make them disappear.

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