Software

Linux desktop lacks innovation

Sundae Supplement Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it

By Liam Proven

Sunday, 4 November 2007, 13:23

Executive summary for the terminally impatient
Microsoft is complaining that "the Linux desktop including OpenOffice" infringes some 235 Microsoft patents. An objective comparison between the whole Linux desktop and Microsoft's Windows desktop shows that it has a good point; there are many resemblances, from trivial to profound. However, there are plentiful other non-Windows-like models of desktop to follow instead. At least two are already there: implemented, working and ready to use, complete with accessories. Two complete Free, open source desktops, radically different from anything Microsoft has patented. They're just not being used by any distributions.

Saga
The ridiculous saga of SCO, with its claims that Linux contained its proprietary code, is all over bar the shouting. But what happened is important. The resolution was not that Linux didn't contain the code: it was that the disputed code wasn't SCO's in the first place. In the world of free and open source software, nobody much took the lawsuit seriously in the first place. Someone who did, though, is Microsoft, who despite not using Unix - indeed, being Unix's biggest and only serious opposition - paid SCO's ridiculous licence fees very early on. There were also significant investments in SCO from a Microsoft-backed investment company.

So, with this effort undermined, Microsoft itself is making threatening noises towards Linux world. This time, it's its vague and thus far unsubstantiated grumbling that "the Linux desktop, including OpenOffice" infringes some 235 Microsoft patents. And once again, the FOSS community isn't taking it very seriously. Its reaction could reasonably be typified as amusement and an an attitude of "bring it on". But it's never wise to taunt someone bigger , stronger and richer than you.

At the same time, of course, it's signing patent-exchange treaties with some Linux vendors, such as Novell, Xandros, Linspire and TurboLinux. Unless these get tested in court, it's hard to say exactly how much they're worth, apart from letting the companies that have signed offer slightly better Microsoft integration in their products. The big thing is that the Vole promises not to bite these companies' customers if or when it finally start gnawing away at those it reckons have infringed its patents. There's little actual protection for the developers of "the Linux desktop" or for the products themselves.

The wording of the threat is very important. The great Vole isn't saying that Linux infringes. Linux, after all, is just the kernel, analogous to NTKRNLPA.EXE on your XP machine, and when was the last time you had anything whatsoever to do with that? It doesn't even show up in Task Manager!

No, it's "the Linux desktop". This means the core OS plus all the infrastructure to display a GUI, and then on top of that, a desktop.

Today, for a lot of people, what "the desktop" really means is ancient history, so a little background is in order.

First, let's define some terms. Most IT types know what "GUI" and "WIMP" mean, and many would consider "desktop" to be broadly equivalent - but it's not.

This is going to sound weird to anyone young enough not to have used anything before Windows 95, but not all of the many dozens of GUIs for Linux have a desktop. But in fact, Windows 3, 2 and 1 didn't, either; nor did NT 3.

The whole idea of a "desktop" was pretty much invented at Apple in the 1980s and, arguably, refined by Microsoft in the 1990s. Apple was inspired to create the $10,000 Lisa and then cut it down to make the $2,500 Mac by some early graphical workstations at Xerox PARC, but Xerox's Alto machine didn't have anything a modern user would recognise as a desktop either. What it did have was a GUI with the essential ingredients of windows, icons, a mouse and a pointer.

Apple's innovations were taking the previously-disregarded background, the blank part of the screen [i]behind[/i] all the windows, and making it represent an office work-surface, populating it with things like icons and menus symbolising familiar real-life objects like wastebins, folders, and blank documents, rather than computer-science concepts like filesystems, directories, and executable files. This may not sound like a big deal today, when we've learned to take such things for granted, but quarter of a century ago, this was radical stuff. It's why Apple is still around today, when contemporaries such as Digital, Osborne and Commodore are long dead.

Daddy, what did you do in the War?
Microsoft didn't come up with anything like this; indeed, it took it eleven years to produce a desktop-based GUI to rival the Mac's. In the early days, there were lawsuits aplenty between Apple, Microsoft, Digital Research and other companies developing and refining the idea of the "graphical desktop". These were settled when companies came up with their own takes on the idea; for example, Apple put drive icons on the desktop and menus at the top of the screen, while Microsoft put drive icons inside a virtual "My Computer" folder and menus inside each window. Small differences, but enough to satisfy the p atent lawyers.

But that was more than a decade ago now. Apple staked its claims in the mid-80s, Microsoft ten years later. Since then, Linux has acquired several desktops. First KDE, originally a German project, written in C++ and based on a Norwegian tool, Trolltech's Qt, that at first was free but not open source. In response to this came GNOME, started by a Mexican developer, but in a Unix-crowd-pleasing move, written in plain old C and based on the GIMP Toolkit (Gtk+), an all-Free tool.

Both were a bit ropey at first, but they've come a long way. They're both quite mature, polished and boast extensive suites of native applications - although this being Linux, they can run each others', too.

Of course, an operating system is more than just a desktop. Something the Windows evangelists generally forget in their comparisons is that a modern Linux distribution comes preloaded with dozens of major applications, too, plus a selection of thousands more - stuff that would add a couple of zeros onto the price of bare Windows. Most distros sport the Firefox web browser and the OpenOffice.org package, comprising half a dozen MS-Office-2003-compatible programs: a Word-alike, Excel-alike, Powerpoint-alike and so on. And, of course, chat, email and diary/address-book programs, games and so on.

This is what's generally referred to as "the Linux desktop": KDE or GNOME with all their accessories, plus OpenOffice or an equivalent such as KDE's KOffice, plus Firefox and associated Internet apps. It's a big bundle: a couple of gig of software from dozens of different suppliers, covering most of the functions provided by Windows plus Office plus additional apps. It's [i]way[/i] more than Apple supplies unless you buy iLife and iWork and possibly MS Office too - again, with a substantial pricetag.

So what? Isn't that irrelevant today?
And the thing is that if you take a hard look at a KDE or GNOME desktop and all its apps, it's painfully obvious where the inspiration for almost all of it came - and it's not Mac OS X. Indeed, OS X's GUI is younger than either KDE or GNOME.

KDE is sometimes painfully like Windows: for instance, its developers long ago mimicked Microsoft's move with "Active Desktop", as bundled with Internet Explorer 4 and used by every version of Windows since, by reusing their web browser to also browse the PC's files and folders.

Let's look at what KDE and GNOME have in common.

Both have task bars with text buttons for each running app, a clock in one corner and an application launch menu in the other, next to which sits a row of icons for frequently-used apps. By default this is across the bottom of the screen, but it can be respositioned, resized, set to auto-hide or always topmost. In this bar near the clock, both have a notification area where resident programs can display icons to tell the user about the system status, and both come with resident applets such as network monitors and auto-update tools that use this area. Both have file browsers with an optional column of command buttons or popular locations down the left hand side. Outside of the file browser, in both, all windows have a control menu at the top left of each window and maximise, minimise and close buttons at top right, and both let you resize windows from all sides. Windows contain a menu bar arranged horizontally across the top, and below that, tend to have a customisable bar of command buttons; if these are unlabelled, temporary labels appear on mouse hover.

For user interaction, on both, most apps pop up dialog boxes, which tend to sport "OK", "Apply" and "Cancel" buttons. To load or save files, a special type of dialog appears with a miniature file browser and a box into which you can type a path or name or combination of both.

You not only can but are encouraged to interact with objects by pointing at them and pressing the right mouse button, which summons a contextual menu at the current mouse position. This is the primary interface for some programs.

Now, bearing this list in mind, think: how much of this description also applies perfectly to Windows? Compare it to the GUIs of Mac OS X, a Palm PDA, a Symbian smartphone or even a high-end photocopier.

To be fair, since version 2, GNOME has gone slightly more Mac-like, moving some functions to the top of the screen instead, and it shows drive icons in a "Computer" menu rather than a folder, but the Windows influence remains plain. It even uses most of Windows' keystrokes, like Alt-F4 to close a window, which, oddly, the slightly more Windows-like KDE doesn't.

This is the target Microsoft is levelling its legal guns at. Even counting minor FOSS contenders like Xfce, all the well-known Linux desktops are unmistakably Windows-like in both look and feel, and when you come to apps like OpenOffice Writer or Calc, the influence is even more plain - in fact, they're nearly identical to MS Office, far closer than even Microsoft's own Office 2007.

This isn't coincidence. You could look at it as a simple evolutionary imperative. The world's main desktop OS and applications are Microsoft's, so it's the GUI the Linux desktops' programmers are most familiar with. What's more, if you're designing a new desktop, aping the market leader is an easy way to make your product comfortable and familiar for most computer users. It's also what they ask for! You could almost say they'd be mad to do anything else.

The trouble is, Microsoft has noticed the resemblance and it's not happy. It's been saying so, clearly and distinctly, for months on end now. And mimicking a massive, extremely rich and highly litigious company like Microsoft is not a good survival tactic.

The Interface Wars
Many people in the IT community are too young to remember the epic "look and feel" battles of the 1980s, when major companies spent millions defending their own arrangements of menus and controls. For countless thousands of people in the software business today, at the time when Lotus 1-2-3 was [i]the[/i] definitive business application and Lotus sued rivals like AsEasyAs into oblivion, they were too busy with learning to talk, use a lavatory and eat solid food to pay attention.

This sort of thing sounds trivial today, but it's anything but. These lawsuits cost millions, took years and were viciously fought. Successful companies struggled and died; fortunes were lost. When Windows came along, the Interface Wars petered out; by 1980s standards, all Windows applications looked almost identical compared to the user-interface chaos of DOS.

Today, for many people in computing, including highly-trained professionals, Windows is all that they know or have ever seen. The details of how it works seem to be obvious, universal ideas, too trivial to notice - but they are not.

This is the core of the problem. There is a lot of common ground between KDE and GNOME, and even between them and smaller players such as Xfce or Enlightenment. The ways that most of the Linux GUIs resemble one another - their lowest common denominator - is, pretty much, the Microsoft Windows way of doing things.

The influences run very deep: for instance, the idea of toolbars across the top of windows is something Microsoft pioneered. Sure, MacPaint had an icon toolbox in 1984 or whenever, but the notion of a row of buttons to supplement or even duplicate the most often-used functions that are already to be found in the menus was brought to the masses by Microsoft, mostly in what was then called " Word for Windows" version 2, more than fifteen years ago. Others tried their own versions, such as Lotus' "SmartIcons", but in the end, they gave up. Some, like Visio Inc. (before they were bought out) and Corel, even paid Microsoft to licence the Microsoft look and feel, so their applications could be marketed as "Office Compatible".

Today, near-identical toolbars adorn Firefox, OpenOffice, all GNOME and KDE apps and so on. Except these implementations are not licensed.

In many cases, whatever the idea was, the great Vole probably didn't invent it, but it was the first to bring it to prime time, and you can bet it was the first to patent it - or it hired the guy who did and bought the rights off him.*

Let's look at a few of these now-obvious and natural seeming ideas. We've mentioned menus across the top of windows and customisable command toolbars. We've described the similarity between GNOME's and KDE's default panels to Windows' taskbar, the layout of their window controls and file browser windows and so on.

What else?
Dragging any edge or corner of a window to resize it, for instance. Try playing with a Mac and you'll find that OS X doesn't do that - and there's a good reason it doesn't, because that's a [i]Microsoft[/i] GUI feature. Jobs' and Gates' mobs faced off twenty years ago, painfully and expensively. They know where they stand. But edge and corner resizing works on Linux, though.

Save and load dialogue boxes - Apple pioneered them, but Apple never let you type in a path, because that sort of thing went against the original Mac interaction model. Instead, there was a button for cycling through mounted drives and an eject button for changing disks. You browsed through folders in the main list. What everyone uses today is the Microsoft style: a list you can click on and a box in which you can type a path.

Recent documents lists. "OK", "Apply" and "Cancel" buttons. Right-click cont ext menus. Double-clicking the title bar to minimize to the taskbar.

This comment is going to go down like a lead balloon in open source circles, but it needs to be said, because nobody is talking about it. Compare Windows and the leading Linux desktops and the Free offerings look like [i]direct clones[/i]. Mac OS X is [i]dramatically[/i] different. Even Windows' long-lost cousin, OS/2 - still around in the guise of Serenity System's eComStation - is unrecognisably different by comparison. OS/2 and Windows share a single ancestry and a lot of code; you needed a trained eye to tell OS/2 1.2 and Windows 3.0 apart, they were so similar. By OS/2 2 and Windows 95, there was no visible relation. Put all of these mugs in an identity parade, even their parents would pick Windows and Linux out as twins.

The Great Vole is not yet specifying what patents on this sort of stuff it owns; all it's saying is that there are about 235 of them. Software patents are a pain in the neck; all they do is allow big rich companies to beat up small poor ones. That's why so many big rich software companies are campaigning for them. For now, though, there are patents on technology ideas, even bleedin' obvious ones, and Microsoft has lots of them, plus supertanker-sized shiploads of cash to pay lawyers to enforce them. Those Linux companies who've made patent-sharing pacts with Microsoft might be safe, but the others are not, and they can't out-pay Microsoft in court.

Following other roads
If the Vole bites and this does go to court then judging from the previous times the same battles have been fought it will be a long, expensive and bitter battle, and whoever came first and has the most cash will win. And the Vole is holding all the cards here; the FOSS guys haven't got a leg to stand on.

The really ironic thing is that it's all so unnecessary. Sure, the obvious thing to do was ape the way the market leader works, but that's not a good plan when it means making products that are uncomfortably similar to those of the biggest, baddest, richest, meanest competitor around. Windows isn't the only role model around.

Companies have "borrowed" the Windows look before. OS/2 3's Launcher, inspired by the Unix Common Desktop Environment - back when anyone still cared about commercial Unix - mutated into a taskbar and launch menu in OS/2 4. However, OS/2 was already beaten then, nothing to worry about, and anyway IBM and Microsoft still had technology-sharing deals in place. Indeed, speaking of Unix, the commercial versions were all constantly at war, but towards the end, the CDE desktop and Motif widget set were widespread. The window furniture of Motif was taken directly from Windows - but that was about all. CDE was so primitive that a modern viewer wouldn't recognise it as a desktop and Solaris has now replaced it with GNOME. Again, though, Unix was an enemy already on the retreat.

But way back when, there were lots of non-Windows-like desktops. BeOS' default task switcher could be rearranged to look like Windows 95, but it wasn't by default and its folder views were more like classic MacOS. Its windows' frames were unlike anything else. Digital Research's GEM and Amiga's Workbench were more Mac-like; in the early days, that was the look to emulate, not the ugly and kludgy MS DOS Executive of Windows 1 and 2. GEM was too Mac-like: Apple's lawyers forced DR to castrate and cripple it, although oddly, the lawsuit didn't affect the Atari ST version. Even the document-and-application-driven Mac was Apple's second stab at a desktop: before it came the Lisa, which used templates and tear-off pads instead of programs that saved files onto disk. A vaguely similar template model drove the OS/2 Workplace Shell, which is still unique today. OS/2's dialog boxes didn't even have an "OK" button; selecting an option made the change instantly. To make it permanent, you just closed the dialog with the close box in the title bar; to undo the changes, you clicked "Cancel". It may not be as readily guessable as Windows, but it's logical - and Windows' "Apply" button confuses people today. How many times have you seen someone click "Apply" then " OK"? Completely unnecessary, but millions do it daily.

But it's not all historical. Today, there are two actively-maintained Free Software desktop environments which are nothing whatsoever like Windows or indeed the Mac - but even most Linux aficionados probably have never heard of them. No current distributions are based on them. If you install one of the myriad of desktop-centric distros - Ubuntu, SUSE, Red Hat, Mandriva, whatever you like - you won't find these in the profusion of software available to install. Both hearken back to much-loved desktops of the 1980s, whose determined fans have kept them alive.

A step in the right direction
When Apple bought NeXT, it did so for Next's operating system, a graphical desktop Unix. Nextstep was the state of the art in the late 1980s, with an elegant greyscaled desktop. Applications could be launched from a Dock down one side of the screen, whereas minimised windows became icons in a separate dock at the bottom. The file manager arranged folders in columns, unlike the Mac's cascading windows or Microsoft's tree structures, and featured a what Web designers would call a breadcrumb trail for navigating up and down the hierarchy, plus a Shelf for stashing frequently-used directories. There was no menu bar at all # neither at the top of the screen nor inside windows. Menus appeared only when you clicked the relevant mouse button, but they cascaded down from the top left of the screen, and oft-needed menus could be torn off and turned into floating tool palettes. There was a recycle bin, long before Windows gained one, but it was in the Dock, not on the desktop, which in line with the minimalistic design was kept bare. Scrollbars were on the left side of windows, because most alphabets read from left to right so that's where your eye begins. Both the arrows were at the same end, so you could fine-tune scroll with little mouse movement, while windows could only be resized using a relatively thick frame across the bottom with handles in the bottom left and right corners.

Sadly for Nextstep's admirers, Apple's was the better-known interface, familiar to millions and specifically designed to be easy for beginners - for example, restricting the mouse to a single button. So over the next few years, Next's developers gave Nextstep a complete makeover to turn it into a modern version of MacOS - now called "Mac OS X". The columns remain as an option in the Finder and the Docks survived in a single merged form, but OS X is otherwise more like the Mac than its own ancestor, with a single permanent menu bar, drives on the desktop, right-mounted scrollbars and windows resized from the bottom right corner only.

The original look and feel of Nextstep lives on, though. Many Unix types admired Next's elegant black window frames and the look was widely imitated on Linux - the BlackBox, OpenBox, FluxBox and WindowMaker window managers all copy the Next look, but - erm - "enhance" it with themes and colour. WindowMaker has another role, though, as the official window manager of GNUstep, a complete Free reimplementation of Next's entire user interface. The GUI is almost incidental to the real project, though, which is a Free rewrite of Next's comprehensive class library framework, including equivalents of Next's feted Interface Builder GUI design tool. This was the original inspiration behind Visual Basic and NeXT's version lives on in Apple's XCode, now given away free with Mac OS X. The key difference is that while GNUstep apps can also be compiled to run under OS X, they work on any Linux machine and most other Unixes too - as does GNUstep itself.

Rock on
Long before the Windows Explorer was a gleam in any Microsoft programmer's eye, the British creator of the BBC Micro, Acorn, created its own 32-bit RISC-based desktop PC, the Archimedes. INQUIRER sister title Personal Computer World gave the Archie a rave review in 1987, agog at the machine's raw speed. Acorn's Californian research lab had planned a complex, Unix-like OS for the new machine, but it didn't happen in time, so the Cambridge head office adapted the BBC Micro's minimal DOS, "MOS", to create an OS for the first machines to hit the market. It was dubbed with the very British name of Arthur, but quickly revised into the more professional-sounding RISC OS 2.

RISC OS comes with an idiosyncratic graphical desktop. The big innovation for the time was a bar across the bottom of the screen that displayed icons for each running application. (Sound familiar at all?) The "icon bar" also contains drive icons, though, and tools for adjusting screen resolution, managing memory and so on. There's no button or menu for launching applications, but this was recognisably the birth of what would, nearly a decade later, become the Windows Taskbar.

RISC OS uses a three-button mouse. Back then, the extremely rare PC mouse had two, but the right one didn't do anything in particular. For instance, in Pagemaker, it was the zoom control. Acorn gave each button distinct functions and even named them to remind you: from left to right, they're called "Select", "Menu" and "Adjust".

There's no menu bar, neither in windows nor across the top of the screen. Applications' main menus appear when you click the "Menu" button over any of that program's windows. Mac fans like to proclaim that the single menu bar is best, because "Fitt's Law" says that one of the screen's long edges is the biggest target to hit when moving the mouse. This entirely fails to notice that it's even easier to hit a target when you don't have to move the mouse at all.

It's like the context menus, as seen today on Windows, Linux and OS X, but RISC OS apps' menus contain all the usual options found in those systems' other menu bars - File, Edit, View and so on. All in one place, with no need for duplication.

The left Select button does what you'd expect - selecting, opening, scrolling and so on. The Adjust button, meanwhile, subtly altered the action of Select. It's hard to explain if you're never used RISC OS, but, for example, right-click on a dialog box's "OK" button and the changes were applied but the dialog stayed open - removing any need for an "Apply" button. Right-click the arrow on a scrollbar and the window scrolled in the opposite direction to the one you got if you clicked with Select. This kept the arrows nicely separated and therefore easier targets to hit, but made precision adjustment easy, so there was no need for a scroll wheel on Acorn mice.

There are other oddities. Window frames have a handy control to push that window behind all the others and you can drag windows without automatically bringing them to the front. An often-confusing feature is constraining the pointer. If you can't meaningfully drag something beyond its window, or if a mandatory dialog is open, then suddenly the mouse pointer can't leave that window or dialog box, so you must do whatever's needed of you.

RISC OS' file manager is clean, simple, elegant and very, very fast, with auto-arranged icons and auto-sizing windows, but RISC OS conceals another strange but brilliantly clever feature when it came to loading and saving files. The environment heavily favours drag and drop, more than any other GUI. To open a file, you drag its icon onto the application's icon in the icon bar. So far, so superficially Mac-like, but icons in the bar represent running apps, as opposed to files on disk. On classic MacOS, you dragged a document onto the icon representing the program binary somewhere on disk, or an alias to the binary. Because the iconbar only contains running programs, you also use those icons to manipulate the program - getting version info, quitting or creating a new document. No need for Mac OS X's distinctive but odd " Application name menu" - the first one after the Apple.

Perhaps RISC OS' most unique and powerful aspect is most visible when you save a file, though. First, open the folder where you want to put it, then click Menu and choose File|Save. The dialog box appears, containing a file icon whose name you can edit. You then just drag this icon into the target folder. There's no need to click a separate "Save" button, nor to use a file selector inside the dialog box to navigate the filesystem - after all, that's what the desktop is for, so why duplicate the functionality? You can also drag a file's icon straight into another program, allowing data flow like the Unix shell's pipe and redirect symbols. However, unlike Unix GUIs on Linux or Mac OS X, let alone Windows, the user doesn't have to worry about saving temporary working copies anywhere.

RISC OS lives on and you can still buy new Acorn-compatible hardware today, but the range of both hardware and software is restricted and rather expensive. If you're running Linux on commodity hardware, though, you can enjoy the benefits of Acorn's elegant desktop with ROX.

Like GNUstep, ROX is a Free desktop that seeks to recreate a classic 1980s GUI. It comes in two parts: the ROX Filer is a lightweight Acorn-style file manager that can be used with any other environment. For the full experience, though, you can replace your desktop with the ROX Panel and ROX Session. This gives Linux an icon bar, a desktop (or "pinboard") and the other features of RISC OS, including drag-and-drop load and save. The modifications to a standard Linux app to make it work with ROX's RISC OS-style loading and saving are small and simple. It requires a little more work to make apps appear on the iconbar rather than opening a Microsoft-style blank document, but it's straightforward and lots of demonstration applets are supplied or available.

Salvation or irrelevance?
GNUstep and ROX show two completely different, utterly non-Windows-like ways to operate a Linux desktop. Both are simple and elegant to use, borrow little or nothing from the Mac or anything else, and have designs that long predate Microsoft's current interface, first seen in 1995. Both have suites of apps of their own and work with existing Linux apps from Firefox to OpenOffice, and in both cases, existing apps could be fairly trivially modified to follow the GNUstep or ROX models instead of the Windows one. Couple these desktops under a suitably non-Windows-like window manager - naturally, both have their own suggestions in this department, but they're not mandatory - and the result would be a complete desktop environment that bore little to no resemblance to Windows and which the Vole therefore couldn't sue.

There are plentiful other ways to go, too. Psion has invented multiple GUIs - the Series 3 and Series 5 were totally different, both from each other or anything else, and both had hundreds of thousands of happy users. Back in the mists of time, Sun's OpenLook and the NeWS GUIs also had different takes on how a desktop works.

Linux isn't Windows. It's a modern Unix, one that's grown up in a world dominated by Windows. It runs on Windows hardware, reads and writes Windows' disks, partitions, filesystems and files, it networks with Windows, it opens documents from Windows applications and prints to Windows printers and works with other devices solely intended for Windows, and it does all these things without actually resembling Windows in any way. It can be coaxed into running Windows applications and even some device drivers, if you must.

But it's not Windows and it's not trying to be. So why do all the main Linux GUIs look and work just like their biggest rival?

The Mac doesn't, and yet people adapt to it quickly and easily and find it a rewarding and pleasant experience. It's kept Apple afloat and competitive in a world dominated by a hostile competitor.

The Mac, GNUstep and the ROX Desktop all show that a general-purpose PC desktop doesn't need to look or work like Windows to be attractive, easy and fun to use. And whereas being Windows-like has aided Windows adoption to some degree, it's also attracted the attention of Windows' parent, and that is never a good thing. It's time to dodge out of Redmond's sights, take a step sideways and follow an independent path. µ

The Linux desktop mimics the Windows desktop for one single reason. Ease of use. Do you think anyone would ever switch to Linux if everything was different?

Also, if you want it to be different, lots of distros do this too. But they aren't all that popular. You know why? They doesn't look like Windows!

So stop complaining and use another distro already!

posted by : Thomas, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Wrong on SCO

"The resolution was not that Linux didn't contain the code: it was that the disputed code wasn't SCO's in the first place. "

Read Groklaw. Not only did SCO have *no* evidence, they wouldn't have been able to sue even *if* there was any infringement as they did not own the copyrights.

posted by : Mediocrates, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Amiga and Prior art

I agree that the emulation of windows isn't really the best bet in interface design but the reason behind it is sound. It's easier to move from A to B if B works a lot like A.

Radial or "Circle menus" based on a right click have been shown to be far faster and lead to a more evolutionary gesture system. A good example of this is the new game HellGate London which uses radial menus for right clicks.

A lot of what you reference in other desktop environments were present on the Amiga OS, but I'm not sure who was first in these cases. 

Much of whats going to happen will be fights over "prior art." The legal field is vastly better educated now than it was during the look and feel wars. (I remember them well!) Prior art will likely over turn a number of patents, but in the end, not all of them.

The Linux community will adapt. With luck the adaptation will happen sooner rather than later as the evolution of the desktop has been stunted for the last two decades and it's time to get it moving forward again.


posted by : GZ, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

hmm..

I was wondering.. How come Linux can ship "tons" of sotware for free and nothing happens, hell, they even boast it as an advantage (it is, really). And at the same time, when MS ships Windows media player or IE inside Windows everyone cries foul! I mean HELOOOOO!!! Any sense here? :)

posted by : Lux, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Linux is not about defaults set for Windows defecters, it's about potential for the rest

Unlike "then", people are very cautious about changing how they interact with their computer. Whenever someone asks me whether Linux is exactly like Windows in every way, even one difference (like "It doesn't have a system tray", or "iTunes doesn't work", or even "you don't need antivirus software") makes them completely disinterested. Even to maintain the 1% marketshare it has now, it has to be 99% like Windows. 

The difference, though, is that Linux can behave exactly like Mac OS X with a theme installation, dock applet and some keybind remapping. It can look and behave in any way anyone's ever thought of how to interact 3ith a computer, often with a few one-click installations.

The patent claims are nothing like you said; they are a generic threat where "Linux desktop" doesn't mean UI, it means anything non-proprietary that runs on a computer.

The Linux desktop does not lack innovation, it is users that aren't willing to imagine alternatives.





posted by : AC, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Many TERRIBLE linux Builds & People who arn't Free.,

You Can Lose Whole Thing InOne Snap with Linux. Linux is #4 orworse.

#1 is server 2008 with LEOPARD (now its intel) & Ultimate Both Hot & Ready. #2 is XP, takayour picka, just trys d' em all.

#3 is anything except LINUX, however UBANTU & Cluster of NOT THAT BAD Software are above LINUXS Intentional Bad Side less by wide MarGIN,
However: How about that JAVA or IBM software, its numero3 just because its for invisible world behind walls.Stuff that cann't be wrong, yet isn't your desktop & WAYbeats DOCTOW QUALITY that is novel when you mention Xandros.

Theres even worse LINUX then that, its free wheeling game of writing & staying few years behind any truely HELD code, YOU Keep Track & YOU Writta Software, so much is really K_D Kamakazie Stuff in Linux it surprising.

I WISH BILL, AS IN "DON'T MESS WITH..." WOULD TAKE OPEN SOURCE UBANTU / SIMILAR SMOOTHER LINUXes & ADD MEDIA PLAYER WORKSTATION FUNCTIONS FROM WILLIAM GATES XP ERA & REALLY MAKE IT SING. maybe special gamers build or very large hd/mem w/ latest tech drivers 2.0/3.0 stuff for 3/4 core/slot 2+ channel present TOP era.

THEN PUT ON IT: LINUX BY BILL GATES WITH KERNEL FROM LINUS TORVALD, & KIDS COULD LOAD & RELOAD ALLTHIER EXPERIMENTAL LIFE.

Signed:PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.




posted by : ULTAYE_TOM, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Maybe the Joke's on the Volester

Sounds like the vole doesn't have a pot to pee in if it wants to destroy Linux or open source! It may force open source to change the GUI and a few other things, most likely for the better.

From what I hear, a lot of gooey effects in Mistah Vistah and Office don't exactly garner a lot of love (since there are third party add ons that return Orifice back to the look of earlier days). At least that is one area the Volesters shouldn't have to worry about being copied!

I know people who use Macs who would curse fluently if required to use the Redmond GUI, so the current Windows way certainly isn't the only - or the best for many. I would hope that the similarities have been to provide a familiar looking visual interface, and any forced changes would likely be for the better.

posted by : Capital_W, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Big as a dime

You so easily call MS bigger than linux, but it isn't, linux has millions of supporters, MS only has a few thousand people, people that they pay to be their friend.
Now who's bigger? or do you think people don't count? That's what the french royalty thought too I might remind you.

Incidentally, perhaps the open source community should sue MS for trying to steal the concept of open source, which is clearly NOT invented by MS, and which they clearly try to imitate (although their nature makes it next to impossible for them to do so).

posted by : W.-, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Amazing history class

I really loved all the different angles you presented regarding the GUIs. I think you mention a very important point, that the open-source community is more reverse-engineered than innovation... Although I believe GNUStep and ROX aren't the most intuitive GUIs... We need some better designs than that!!

posted by : Saptarshi, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

GUI

I was one of those taking too much care of other things than software in the 80's. Though all your statements might be true that linux is a copy of Windows if you merely look at the "looks", it can never be a point of victory in a lawsuit. In that case all cars should be remade. Because in the end they look a lot like each-other: they have 4 wheels, two mirrors at the ouside, a steeringwheel and a stick to change gears etc. etc. The "looks" of an Operating system can (IMHO) not be patented,and I would be surprised if the patents Microsoft is talking about, are based on that...
<a href="http://mckooiker.byethost5.com/blog/">mckooiker</a>

posted by : Maarten Kooiker, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Linux a modern Unix ?!

Modern UNIXes should be microkernel based, not ancient monolitic kernels which Linux is. 
A modern UNIX should feature some proper standards including some standard API for application installations thru distributions and some standard drivers API as well. 

Linux is just about chaos and speculation. Industry support is at the bare minimum, real developers inject money to make only what they need work correctly, the rest of the OS is pretty unusable and/or a real waste of time.

A modern UNIX is OS X, although its MACH kernel is not the microkernel version, unfortunately. But OS X has some serious multimedia APIs as well as a usable GUI and drivers support (although limited due to Steve Jobs will not to irritate his good friend Bill Gates)...

posted by : Joerg, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Too many words in the article

If Microsoft could attack FOSS with its patents, it would already happily do it. However, there are tons and tons of money behind FOSS, and some big players would not like to lose it. Moreover those big players (IBM, Red Hat, Google etc.) have patents too that can be unleashed upon Microsoft. Therefore it does not matter how many Vole's patents FOSS infringe. What matters is the strong business support of FOSS, and it is not going to end any time soon.

posted by : Xebec, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Looooonnnnnnnnng

Did anyone actually make it to the end of this?

posted by : M&M, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

nice history lesson, your a brave man

I'm growing weary of OS evangelists but I'm sure the author is going to hear from a few on this one. sigh

I agree that desktop Linux requires more innovation but in the same way Windows has cemented itself in the desktop market so have Gnome and KDE on the Linux Desktop. Might mean trouble if any one distro ever makes a hole in Windows share, time will tell...

I would love to see Mozilla backed by Google bring something out that looks less Windowish and has decent support and training for converts. Most Distro users do try hard to support the newbs but much gets lost in translation. 

Mozilla/Google can afford the patent attorneys to work with developers and mull through the muck and tell us what's left 'unpatented' . A bit of branding clout and sh*t loads of paid developers/researchers goes a long way as MS has proven. Cmon Zilla

posted by : nightstalker, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

this is all well and good

As a gentoo and xp dual booter I can tell you that alot of what you say is true, but for me alot of what the linux "desktop" experience is about is customizing it to work for you, something which IMO is much harder to do in windows and osx. Linux desktops give the maximum felxability, from light weight clients like fluxbox to the behemoth KDE. Full disclosure says that I use gnome with compiz fusion. Compiz is possibly the best window manager I have ever used, sure, it still leaves things like nautilus to do interfacing with your files, but it completely changes how I interact with my computer and really boosts my productivity because the windows I need are always on top just a few desktops away and I dont have to touch the mouse to go digging for them or remember where they are in alt-tab. I may not be the best example of a linux desktop user since I perfer to use a terminal window for most of what I do. You cant type your path names in those little upload and download boxes in xp (and osx too IIRC but its been awhile) and you can also copy any file and then paste it into a field as a location something which xp also doesnt do and is a HUGE time saver. I hate having to click through 10 folders when I know right where the damned file I want is and when its already open in another window.

One problem that I have observed with OSX is that it seems to promote among its users extremely disordered and organized desktops. The way it handles windows also seems to promote this cluttered feeling. They may be smug but god help them if their spotlight stops working. To this end I would suggest that most mac users are people who dont want to have to use much mental energy interacting with their computer, a reasonable desire and osx to a certain extent does this for them. Many MS users are also in the same boat but there is also room for some tweaking and I have encountered more well organized desktops on windows than I have on osx, suggesting that xp and vista do less to promote disorganization and require a little more thought to use well (I've seen plenty of disorganized desktops on xp). Linux users seem to me to actively desire a more involved experience and hence spend quite a bit more energy working with their OS. Vastly fewer desktops in the first place (thanks market share) but of those few they seem to hide their clutter away in their home folder or /mnt/*/.

One other key area of difference that I've observed is how programs are started. Macs use the doc or their applications folder. The doc is fine but the applications folder is a nightmare. Windows users can switch between start menu programs or the pinned list and their desktop icons (I hate having to go through the whole start menu list) or as a final option quick launch (my least favorite for its horrid ugliness). For linux I find that people can do whatever they want. Applications menu (more logical than start IMO) or they can put them on their desktop or they can install a dock or they can use a terminal or they can stick them on their panels (I set most of the ones I use to switch on at start up).

I think my point is that talking about default linux setups is silly, however maybe this is the problem. Linux isnt about being default, there is no default. Most individuals looking for default will find that "default" linux is just a console with a "login:" flashing at them. Things like ubuntu have defaults, but even there its a stretch. They choose to use a subset of what linux has to offer and as a result of course they look like MS since they cut out 90% of what linux is about (read: choice). Most people dont do well with choice, they dont have time. Making a new and different system beyond gnome and kde and lightweight clients is a project for some new innovative developer. If it ends up being name "Lind" then lubuntu will be your innovative new desktop linux distro, but the innovation of linux (if you choose to call it that) is choice. Take the choice away and yes, you look very much like your competitors because you are only revealing a tiny percent of yourself. Maybe trying to stuff linux into a box needs to be reexamined.

posted by : Hyperion2010, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

And more

You forgot to mention that most Linux distros come with at least one serious compiler: gcc. This alone would cost a little fortune.
There are, also, many other really powerful interpreters like Perl, PHP, Python and all those diferent shell flavours, while Windows got CMD.EXE and Windows Scripting Host. Not even close.
While I think that Windows is way too dumb-user centered, I find that Linux is way too geek-with-lots-of-spare-time centered.
In Windows you need an app to do every single slightly different thing, while in Linux you got to read 5 man pages and then pipe 8 commands to do what you want.
There should be a healthy balance. And by the way, Linux is not Unix.

posted by : Renato Cherullo, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

I actually aggree

As an avid linux user... I actually agree with this article for the most part.

The main problem is, the average user that has been using Windows for many years doesn't want a huge learning curve, if intending to switch. So that is why the major Linux Distros attempt to curb the learning curve as much as possible, as more people get sick of Microsofts Draconian spyware, phone-home-ware, and bloatware. They are really looking for a Windows alternative.

Since Leopard has come out, it's the first time since Mac was introduced that I've actually been impressed enough to consider picking up an iMAC or something. Granted it has it's issues too... but after playing with it at a local Apple store, and watching the guided tour from the Apple site... it was the first time I saw more usability than eye-candy.

Can someone come up with something that innovative (truly useful eye candy) for a linux desktop?

I hope so. However, unless ROX, GNUStep, or something completely new evolves exponentially to and OSX usability / eye-candy ratio, within a short period of time... I don't see anyone rushing to a non-windows-like desktop for Linux.

posted by : Penguinhead, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Those supposed GUI patents don't seem so strong to me.

I seem to remember clicking on file menus, close boxes, dragging window sizes, and yes even 

toolbar icons (in apps), way back in the heady days of the Atari st. Back when the MSdos folks 

were still using the cli. Most of the componants you talk about were there in the Gem desktop, 

albeit in crude form. So where's that MS innovation again? I'd be real curious to see how many 

of these "gui" lawsuits they could actually win. My guess is 90 percent of these are prior art 

in another os or application predating microsofts reign. Its probably time for most of these 

to be tested in courts anyway just to clear things up.

While I don't necessarily disagree with your point about making yourself a target for 

Microsoft. I don't have a problem with standardizing some interface features. This has been 

one of the things that have kept linux off more computers. People don't want to learn fifteen 

different ways to do the same thing, they just want it to work as expected. And seeing as MS 

has the lions share of the market, guess what they expect.

Iam making a new open source car. I don't want it to be like ford's or chevy's so Iam going to 

put the steering wheel on the drivers door. And these toyota-like foot pedals have to change, 

lets put the gas pedal under the left foot, clutch under the right, and move the throttle to a 

knob on the dashboard. My user interface is now different from everybody else. No patent 

problems. Trouble is, nobody wants to drive my car because of the learning curve.

Like the steering wheel and gas pedal, sometimes standard interfaces are good.


Cheers to the INQ from across the pond.
RC..



posted by : RC, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Windows is not improving its usability

The article is quite right. 
Even though I would like to know... what has MS invented for the desktop since windows 98? It hasn't improved much in the usability to be honest. 

GNU/Linux is nowadays above Windows, in several usability aspects. Multiple desktops, better effects, easier to install/unistall programs, better networking capabilities, more and better integrated features (burn DVDs, play music, films, codecs, plugins, office, graphics, internet tools...), better updating system, better plug'n'play system (when hardware is supported of course), better maintained and much cleaner menus and desktop icons, to name a few ...

I use Ubuntu because overall I find it easier to use than Windows. But of course the rest of great features such as security, low resources and performance do not bother me.

posted by : Roger, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Innovation

Thank you for a very nice article. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It even taught me a thing or two about OS history.
I came to the IT world just when windown 3.11 (for workstations) came out. So it really filled in some gaps.

Keep up the good work!

posted by : Someone Special, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Super Article

Nice. I read the lot and appreciated it greatly. Some good insights in there and a history lesson for all us youngsters who's first computing experience was a ZX81.

posted by : BitJunkie, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

much ado about nothing

Two points:
1.) Resemblance does not constitute patent infringement. 
2.) Confusing your users with a foreign computing environment is a bad idea.

posted by : Liam Smit, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

just a minor correction

It's certainly interesting to see an article like this; the linux community has pushed too hard to make distros drop-in replacements for windows. I just wanted to point out that neither xfce nor enlightenment need to be windows-like. They both are customizable to a far greater degree than gnome or kde, and I've used implementations of both that had very little in common with the windows desktop.

posted by : Josh, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Excelent

This is the best article I've ever read here in The Inquirer. 
I'm a big Linux fan and user, and i can't be more in agree with your words. 

I've never used RiscOS nor Nextstep, neither tried GNUStep nor ROX, but because i didn't know about them. Linux mainstream distros like Ubuntu keep their interfaces to "look like windows" so they can ensure the public to adapt, but the reality is that Linux is adaptable, and any distribution can suplly two or more interfaces, like Ubuntu with Gnome/KDE/XFce. Distributions should add space for innovation, instead of enforcing this similarities that are obsoletes in so many aspects. 

In Desktop system, there is room and need for innovation, and in Linux has no limits.

Linux now more than never needs identity and needs to get off the image of the "wanna be windows" and be the "next generation OS"

It's in all of us, users and developers. I'm starting by testing this interfaces you pointed.

posted by : david lay, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Butt Ugly == Fugly

First off, i had a very difficult time following through this article through its end. It's a crashing bore. Most print and online magazines have several editors on staff, who can sometimes, but not always, help with soporific and rambling writing styles. Could very well be that this article was beyond help.

Second, you're pushing RISC OS' Desktop. Check out the screenies. BUTT UGLY is a compliment.

Lastly, stop being such an obvious Microsoft Troll. Take a class in Corporate Communications.




posted by : Elmer J Fudd, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

So following that line....

So following your line Ford should be suing Toyota and Nissan for putting fenders on cars.

This reeks of Stevie "I'll throw a chair at you" Ballbuster.

K



posted by : Ken, 04 November 2007 Complain about this comment

odd about gnustep and rox

It does seem rediculous that the FOSS community ignores the most open gui desktops in favour of ones that mimic the proprietary desktops of Windows and the MAC, when FOSS is supposed in some senses to be the enemy of proprietary software. In particular GNUSTEP was the gui system selected by the FSF and I believe Mr Stallman himself to be the official FSF desktop.
I have tried both systems myself but with little success however. GNUSTEP requires a rocket scientist to get it up and running. The packages pointed to on the website are for real old systems (at least they were when I used them), and the packages supplied with Debian for example did not work properly. Unfortunately the GNUSTEP developers seem to have little interest in promoting their system, or at least thats the way it looks to me. Similar siutation with ROX. You need to know the system well at a technical level to get it all up and running. No way an ordinary user is going to have any success doing it. Unless the authors of these systems push harder to get them adopted, or at least make it easy to install them on an existing distro, they are never likely to catch on.
Funny that despite the ever increasing number of distros (there must be hundreds), as far as I know not a single one of them supports either desktop. But they do have different wallpapers - that must be what freedom of choice is all about.

posted by : stolennomenclature, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Patents

There are several aspects to software patents:
1)software is not patentable. Software patents are not recognized in most of the world, except Japan and the USA. By the terms of the US laws, you cannot patent an idea or concept. All of the things described in this article are mere ideas. You can get a computer to do anything it is physically capable of doing if you know what you want done. There is no innovation or patentable idea in reshaping a window. Prior art could go back to the iris on a camera...
2)It was the early years when Apple and M$ stole/borrowed ideas from Xerox Parc. Neither has a right to patent those ideas. The recent suit against RedHat by a patent troll could well clear up software patents for good. M$ has far more to lose by taking this matter to court. FUD has value. Getting trashed in public court proceedings has none.
3)Any of the relevant patents have long since expired. Terms are 15 to 17 years. How long have windows been resized on this planet? I was working with rectangular regions of screen in the 1980s. Standard practice was to specify the size somehow. A mouse is just a couple of shaft encoders which were around long before that...
4)M$, as big as it is cannot sue the whole world. GNU/Linux can code aroundanything they can throw out. GNU/Linux can go underground. Suing Linux would make it a popular passtime.

M$ will not sue anybody for running GNU/Linux.

posted by : Robert Pogson, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Yes, but you forget...

You are correct: most readers will be too young to know that there were at least three generations of "desktop" prior to the history you provide. Much of the DOS software just prior to Windoze 3 remains superior IN PRODUCTIVITY to today's software. This is for two reasons:

1. Each software designer was free to develop an interface suitable to the task. Great examples of alternative interfaces are Novell's C-worthy (used in NetWare utilities), FrameWorks, Clarion for DOS, InfoSelect for DOS, Word 3.x for DOS, and Ventura for DOS. An earlier generation included the Wang interface which presaged the LAN-based office systems. All different interfaces, all highly productive.

2. Software used to take much more account of keyboard ergonomics. When Mac and Windoze arrived, they keyboard was dismissed as history, and things started to take much longer. IBM at the time did a study which showed that a mouse-oriented GUI provided something like a 30% drop in productivity. Of course, once the market "spoke" they shut up about this. It was about this time that we started hearing about carpal tunnel. Today, the keyboard is a monstrosity lacking a full-size backtab key, saddled with misplaced caps and control keys, and suffering from function keys placed outside the useful range of finger reach, thus killing of the most useful control-function# keyboard "sneaks" which made WordPerfect so popular.

posted by : Malcolm, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

idiotic patents

How stupid is it that someone can actually patent an idea as simple and bleeding obvious as the start button on the Windos desktop, or the X close box on the right hand side of a window. Ive worked most of my life in software development, and the problem i had was not coming up with new ideas of that kind, but of choosing between the hundreds of similar ideas that kept popping into my head. Thinking up things this basic is dead easy. Being allowed to patent them is absurd. Hey just got an idea - i might try and patent the previous sentence (Being allowed to patent them is absurd). Wonder if thats been used before. Mmmmm.

posted by : stolennomenclature, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

MAD?

Your article is informative, but gives the reader a misleading sensation that the *little Linux people* must change their ways and comply with the wishes of the Big Bad Microsoft in order to avoid being squashed (like the rest of the world that MS seems to need to try and control and dominate at all times). I feel that most if not all the *ideas* you attribute to Microsoft were prior art stolen from others, and that this would also be brought to light in any potential court drama.

But the real question here is: who has the most to lose? Particularly when you consider that the *little Linux people* consist of IBM, Google, Novell, and many others, the combined patent portfolio of which dwarfs Microsoft's by a huge margin. Can Microsoft stop the distribution of Linux, an open-source OS which develops so rapidly that last month's code is ancient history, and any supposed issues can be skirted in hours? Compare this to MS's 5 year multi-billion dollar development cycle, with lots of CD's, DVD's in distribution and strorage. You will quickly see why the *Bully Ballmer* is confined to uttering idle threats while shoring up puppet attacks AKA SCO and IP Innovation/Acacia. If Microsoft, a company with such a great ability to pay and in such a vulnerable condition if an order was given to cease the distribution and use of their OS's and other products, was foolish enough to try an push a legal button themselves, this would indeed be Self (and not Mutually Assured) Destruction. So, as the FOSS says, go ahead, Steve, make OUR day...

posted by : make_my_day, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

You completely forgot...

...to mention the innovative "Sugar" interface developed by the OLPC folks.

posted by : Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Missed Opportunity

Why do I feel the last couple of decades have been wasted on 'gilding the lilly'.
Whats the point of a fancy font when no-one other than systems analysts/programmers should ever look at the data that should merely be passed between computers.
We've used the computer to design different saddles for a horse when the computer itself is a space rocket.

posted by : Tom Potts, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Taste your own medicine

Being terminally impatient I didn't get past the summary. We have lived, for some time now, with Microsoft's business model of adopting all the nice trinkets that 3rd party developers make for their current system into their next OS update and by doing so demolished any opposition. Linux's biggest contribution in innovation is to do exactly the same except provide it for free – that is just the way it should be!

posted by : D. Yribsilas, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

CP/M to DOS

How original was Microsoft when it copied system calls from CP/M to DOS?




posted by : Ghost of CP/M, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

similarity or configurability...

Those things you say are configurations done on Gnome and KDE. You can even make GNOME / KDE look like MAC OSX Dekstop. Therefore, there's more innovation in GNU/Linux Desktop when it comes to configurability than windows. And, oooh what about the Virtual Desktops? And, beryl? 

By the way, 3D comes to open source first. Windows Vista proves how they can beat GNU/Linux in producing the most awful and the most resource hungry and most insecure desktop OS. So far, other OS can't take this patented product result of MS.

Desktop GNU/Linux are simpler to operate then Windows. I used to grow up with Windows and took GNU/Linux a try. When I got used to the working of GNU/Linux i wonder why i'd put up with the cumbersome UI of Windows in all those years. tsk-tsk.

also, in what area is it that Mac OSX is not more advance or equally advance as that of Windows? I was able to use Mac OSX it took me some time to find things I need to do simply because I'm not used to it yet. But given Windows Vista and Mac OSX Desktop... i chose Mac OSx Organization and features than Windows Vista.

I used to administer winXP from time to time and I find the menus too cumbersome to work with.

The author's article is counting only on the majority of readers that have no idea or little experience on other OS Desktops. Well, bad news for the author, I was exposed to GNU/Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.


posted by : nbjayme, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

great

article. I too wish for more inspiring interfaces. Windows *is* clunky. It is actually one of the reasons I don't bother with linux. If it it looks the same, feels the same, is the same. Why should I care?
The killer app for Linux is a new better desktop. One that outclasses all that has been done before. One that makes me drool and shiver with anticipation of what will happen when I click something. Linux can go there, but does any of the Linux programmers *want* to go there? Or are they happy to sit there in complacency and copy windows?

Standardized user interfaces is rubbish, true communist crap. Learning an interface is five minutes, if it's cool, you'll *want* to do it. Though I never knew you could get nextstep on linux, used to love that. Maybe I give it a spin.

cheers

posted by : b, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Strange reasoning

Don't you think all the cars around us look a bit the same. Oh, God, we even find wheels and doors in almost the same places. Oh, NO. How could it be?
And you know what, last time I visited my friends house his fridge looked very similar to mine, just different label and curvature. Oh, no and all TVs are square. Xboxs joystick is very similar to PS, just different color and buttons shape. Do you want me to carry on?

Whats wrong with you, people? Are you feeling OK?

posted by : Ruslan, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

indeed, prior art

most of the answers to this funtionality you have yourself answered by listing all the previous OS's that had similar features. Its all about the prior art.

You write CDE off very quickly as primitive, but a lot of those ideas you list as copied from microsoft were already in there, window buttons etc. a clock in the bottom left of a bar along the bottom of the screen. A button you can click for a menu to come up with further programs to launch. Maybe more primitive, but there was a lot in it. (And i still like and use it, you heartless *&^**^)

Still, your right in many ways. I doubt microsoft is making these noises if they didnt have *some* "evidence". Mind you i said that when SCO started making noise too, so im probably wrong.

But when you say OSS is hopelessly unprepared, well im not too certain but i believe there are patent pools etc and a lot of money out aside for OSS?

i hope a lot can be defeated with prior art, and because of the nature of linux im sure the rest can be worked around.

posted by : s98, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Understand the article before posting

The writer wasn´t defending Windows neither attacking Linux. He just pointed that there´s open source GUI´s out there that can be used without braking any MS patents.
You can´t say that Linux´s GUI need to resemble Windows just to make it easy to people use it, or move from windows to Linux. As the writer said, there´s options that can be used legally.

posted by : Ari, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Nostalgia

Reading this article, particularly the bit about RISC OS, nearly brought a tear to my eye. I was a massive, massive RISC OS enthusiast up until the late 90's and reading this reminded me of what an utterly fantastic OS it is. Even now, nearly a decade since I last used it, it still contains numerous useability features that continue to elude the most modern and advanced desktops.

Gauge

posted by : Gauge, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

From my persepective

I would agree that a lot of Window Managers have a Windows or Mac look and feel. Though I have been using KDE as my full time interface since the Alpha 1.0 days and often times I find there are many innovations there that later show up in Windows or Office. When I saw Vista, I thought, "Finally, MS is catching up to everyone else." I am sure the people using Mac OS X day in and day out felt the same way. Sure MS changed it a little here and a little there, but translucency on the desktop, who put it on there first? The desktop applets?

I guess it is easy to argue that MS patented a lot of things first, but in my 20 years using computers, I never saw them innovate anything useful. That view may be myopic, but that is what I think. As for the distros, well they can always change the look a little when it is shipped out. For me, every time I start KDE up for the first time, I am given a huge list of styles to make it emulate. There may be some core methodologies that might be harder to change, but it seems both KDE and GNOME are moving forward at a faster rate then the big guys.


posted by : JG, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

WINDOWS 95 MAC 85

Its a shame apple did not have the financial resources back then, because microsoft would not have th Gui . Now Microsoft goes after everyone trying to stop innovation.and anything that resembles Windose . Imagine buying a new car,any brand .and they all have the same engine,sure you can replace the engine after you buy th,e car,but that company that made the engine still gets paid even if you dont want or use it , or replace it. NOW apply this to microsoft.same engine any pc. they still get paid whether you use it or not. I thing every pc maker should be mandated to offer at least two operatiing systems on every pc . . once the consumer registers the OS,then and only then should the operating system company be paid

posted by : lou, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Remember GEM?

Anyone used to use Ataris back in the day before Windows? They use the same method of opening, moving, closing and resizing windows. The idea that Microsoft invented this is laughable. Microsoft are just a bunch of people who see other ideas, make a second rate copy them and make obscene amounts of money for it. 

Microsoft know they don't have a leg to stand on which is why they make all these threats, but never carry them out. They are just hoping that FUD will carry them through in the aftermath of the Vista disaster and people waking up to the alternatives Linux provide. 

KDE4 is coming along soon as well which apparently changes a lot of these ways of working.

posted by : DiBosco, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Its true

While it IS true that both KDE and GNOME in their base forms appear to be like Windows, the similarities end there. From codebase to licensing to design, they are quite literally and completely different. For example, can you resize the bottom bar in Vista or XP?.. NO! You can in KDE, and you can even make KDE look like Mac OSX, or something completely different. Can you change the main Menu structure or layout in Leopard?.. NO! But you CAN in GNOME, and again, you can make GNOME look like KDE, or XP, or whatever. So, you can say all you like that GNOME and KDE infringe, but if taken to court and argued, the true merits of both WM's will come to play and trounce anything M$ can put out there. You may have a point about the buttons and customized menu bars, but M$ does not have much of a case their either, as they infringed on "prior art" with that too. The silly thing about all this is that M$ has not "innovated" anything... Ever.. That I can think of. Rather, they copy existing ideas, or try to expand on those already discarded by others. Take for example the sidebar in Vista with the clock and other "Desklets"... Mac OSX anyone?!.. HELLOOOO!.. Lets take a good look at IE7 and tabbed browsing. Gee... Where did THAT come from?.. Im sure if we all looked a bit harder at Vista and dissected its parts, well find it to be 10% M$, and 90% other outside innovations that were stuffed in under an M$ "copywright" and "patent", which will not stand the test of court.

Just because this giant has alot of money, does not mean it can "buy" the law. In some cases yes, but I do not believe it can buy the appeals process sure to follow. Sure, M$ has a ton of cash to pursue a very long court battle, but is that really in its best interests?.. I think not. Ballmer is no fool, and even HE knows that interoperability is the best way to make friends and gain/retain customers in the Business world. I think M$ is doing the smartest thing possible right now, which is to try to innovate in uncharted area's, while maintaining its current market base by pissing as few people off as possible, while spreading FUD about Open Source to discourage its use by the ignorant masses. Its working, and as long as it does, why should M$ pursue any other strategy which would cost alot of cash for questionable results????

posted by : davemc, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

ULTAYE_TOM, do you smell burnt toast?

Seriously, dude, call the hospital cause it sounds like you're having a stroke by the way you type.

Lay off the caffeine and file down your caps lock, buddy!

posted by : Russell, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Samna Ami

Toolbar with icons was developed in AmiPro, developed by Samna for Windows. AmiPro predated MS Word and its development was, at first, encouraged by MS (just before Windows 3.0). Lotus bought Samna to start a suite early in 1990s and used the icons in all SmartSuite apps -- and some are used in Notes.

AmiPro sold better that MS Word for some years and was truly WYSIWYG at the time when Word still had only Normal view. Of course, IBM is in no position to sue MS.

posted by : killuisa, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

yeah, but....

What about MS and it's copious use of other desktop's features? Let's look at Vista and it's "innovations." The cube? Beryl project. Widgets? Mac (if memory serves). PowerShell? Linux/Unix clone and it's interesting that they would seemingly shift direction going AWAY from a GUI.

The real shame here is that Windows can borrow the features of FOSS, use them in their OS, and that's okay. The opposite does not work, though, and the FOSS industry gets (so far) the posturing of a lawsuit.

The claim of KDE keyboard shortcuts mimicing that of Windows, while technically true by default, is customizable. In fact, so customizable, that you configure it to mimic a Macs. Or one of KDE's own concoctions.

That familiar taskbar? Yep .. it's customizable too. In fact, you can make it look like a Mac. You can add more if you like. You can get rid of the clock. Pretty much any way you want to line it up. The default is admittedly Windows-like. So does adapting these things to a familiar interface constitute infringement (assuming these things are patented)? Would you the author and/or MS be satisfied if the defaults were changed, but the ability to make it look/behave like other interfaces were available?

posted by : Aaron M, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Some key facts overlooked

I was using the Amiga 1000 back in 1986 which is around the time that X windows, and Mac started with their GUI's MS did not show up for a number of years with theirs! Also it is interesting to note that a fledgling software company by the name of Microsoft had been contracted to develop some of the Amiga stuff. I am not sure at this time what parts it took part in but it would be interesting to see if the MS OS might contain some of the Amiga code, it certainly used the best elements of the Mac, X windows, and the Amiga GUI's in its desktop.

posted by : Robert, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

suing on a gui

If they would sue opensource applications like openoffice firefox and other applications for using things like menubars, they actually make their system less familiar in the long run.

posted by : Joshua, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

This is silly.......

M$ better have more up their sleeve than superficial resemblance.... also they did not invent the Desktop, they just mass marketed it.....they are behind the latest lawsuits, have no doubt on that score, they are using other companies as proxies because they are afraid to stick out their own necks....

posted by : mzimo, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

for LUX

People cry foul about IE because it cannot be removed and is REQUIRED for Windows update.....also for the Doctor....your post makes little sense but i will assume you are the victim of bad translation

posted by : mercurial, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Good points

I think you made some very good points in your article.

In several discussions on the web, I have also been mentioning the lack of innovation in the Linux development because everybody just seems to be following the "me too" method. What is the point in creating things that look and feel like Microsoft's or Apple's products? Are they really so good that nobody can do better than this?

Apple just demonstrated with Numbers that you can actually create a spreadsheet program that is much easier to use than Microsoft's Excel. They showed with the iPhone that you can re-invent the entire smartphone idea. They continuously look at things and try to improve them. Yes, they've copied ideas, too. But so did all the great artists throughout human history. As Picasso said: "Good artists copy. Great artists steal."

It's about time the Linux folks become great artists.

As for the patent situation: Initiatives like "show us the code" only demonstrate that most people don't know how the patent system works. The truth is that you do NOT need an implementation of a product or an idea to get a patent for it. If you needed that, so-called "submarine patents" would not work. So it's pointless to ask for "the code". 

Maybe you cannot patent a certain look (how can Disney then claim intellectual property for Donald Duck?), but you absolutely can patent the behavior of a user interface. 

You should also be aware that in every industry the big players have patents agreements with each other - that's how it is even possible that all cars basically work the same way.

My wish for the Linux developers: Don't re-invent the wheel. Stop creating clones. Stop looking at where things are, look at where things should be. Be innovative and get ahead of the crowd.

Great software is not about technology. It is about its users.

If you mistake this for whining, then you are just not getting the point or you are trapped in the microcosm of bits and bytes or, even worse, the dogma of ideology, and don't see the big picture anymore.



posted by : Winfried Maus, 05 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Specifications - Microsoft follows them too

There is a document - I believe written by IBM - that specifies a lot of what you describe. Of course I can't find it using now too common keywords like "desktop", "windows", "specification".

The specification or standard describes dialog box "OK" and "Cancel" buttons as well as many other look and feel items you mentioned.

Lotus sued Paperback over their version of a spreadsheet and lost on the look and feel portion of the lawsuit - if I recall correctly. I think they had more luck with how their macros were replicated.

posted by : James Royer, 06 November 2007 Complain about this comment

The boy who cried wolf!!!

The article's author count on the fact that most people have no experience or close-to-ignorance on historical facts and exposure to other OSes.

What the author did not actually know is that those are simply configurations of KDE and GNOME desktop. Thus, the real innovation in GNU/Linux desktops are of its configurability. I usually change the default desktop organization in Ubuntu. And, for those users who are used to Mac OSX, I placed items to closely mimic that of MAC OSX.

This kind of article reminds of the story "The boy who cried wolf!!!" MS is counting on the fact that the more you repeat a lie it somewhat becomes credible in the long time.

posted by : bimbo, 06 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Re Mr. Kooiker's Comment

Although I'm no expert in legal matters, I'm inclined to think that Mr. Kooiker has made a very good point. We should hope that this principle will prevail. As for the appearance of the desktop, I daresay that most Linux users would not want their desktop to closely resemble that of a Windows machine.

posted by : James Bowen, 06 November 2007 Complain about this comment

different looks can catch the eye

The article is courageous and it reaches the core of the Linux vs. Windows matter.
Linux distros do not benefit from looking like Windows. People who want a Windows-like free alternative will always notice the minor differences and ultimately see Linuxes as cheap and restrictive clones. Macs (along with their NOT Vista OS X) sell because they are not PC's (with Bill OS).

posted by : orange pineapple, 06 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Might I be so bold as to say

That the interface is only a small part of the issue. The interface is the faceplate, the candy shell, the exterior paint job. The innovative thing about Linux is that you can customize it any way you want to. You can make it look and feel like Windows, you can make it look and feel like MacOS, you can make it look and feel like AmigaOS, or RISC OS, or NexTStep, or whatever you want. 

Two very innovative new projects that don't have anything like them, really include Enlightenment (so it's been around a while, have you seen DR17, lately) and Compiz (sure Vista and Leopard have fancy effects, but not nearly the selection and range of effects as you can get with Compiz). 

The major issues with Linux adoption include things like Unfinished work, visible bugs and IT DOESN'T COME BUNDLED ON A PC AT THE STORE! You see Linux PC's and Notebooks on the shelves at Best Buy and at Walmart, and at XYZ CompuShop and you will see more widespread Linux addoption. Dell selling Linux computers is a start. The new Google-Linux PC that Walmart is now selling is another step. Step-by-step, linux adoption is growing. 

How long before Linux passes MacOS on the desktop? I don't know, but I see it happening. How long before Linux passes Windows on the desktop? I don't know. That is a lot farther off, but again I see it as a probability. (call me optimistic, because I may be).

On the other hand, how much innovation has there been in the Windows interface? or the Mac interface? When compared to the window managers of Linux, you might go so far as to ask how they got away with calling it "Windows" when there is so much more you can do with a [/i]proper[/i] window manager.

posted by : airdrik, 06 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Re-inventing the wheel

Next someone will pop up claiming copyright on the steering wheel and brake/clutch/accelerator arrangement in all cars. When I worked for Lesney Products in the 1960's we spent some energy reminding journalists that the Matchbox name should be spelled with a a capital, fearing that Matchbox would become a generic like Dinky or Hoover. Sadly, the Matchbox name has almost gone the same way as Dinky Toys or the pre-eminence of Hoover in vacuum cleaners. The Windows desktop is unarguably a generic currently but will probably be surpassed by something better before anyone gets to court.

posted by : fihart, 06 November 2007 Complain about this comment

innovation is not Linux's problem

The GUI wars over the years have been interesting. Everyone wants to make the claim that they originated the idea and thus have the right to demand royalties and loyalities. The problem is that the GUI itself has become something of the public domain through use.To design something too different would risk the public not accepting it. Besides, trading, barrowing and even stealing ideas is just business in the history of computers. Cars are made to be driven yet there are many designs, styles. Ink pens the same. We all have a face, same function, different look. To argue who is supreme on the desktop is kind of silly. Why should Linux distinguish itself from Microsoft or Apple with a GUI that is so different from what users are using? I don't believe Linux should do anything different than Microsoft or Apple. If you really think about it Linux has had many ideas already that both Microsoft and Apple have perfected for years. It becomes a matter of trend and fashion and what the OS makers preceive that the user community will like. I will agree that you can find some elements that all GUI's share, but I must say that the GUI is not the operating system which bears the real difference. So all that being said, the notion of ripping-off, copying and even imitating is not a fare assumption.

posted by : Arnold L. Johnson, 06 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Geos

What about geos. I had Geoworks running on dos with a GUI far better than anything by MS before windows 3.1 came on the scene. it ran on 650k as well. it was a great system but only lacked a com. interface which was in its infancy at the time as well. A few German and South Africans tried to keep it going but it fell by the wayside due to the overpowering might of MS.

posted by : Peter Egan, 06 November 2007 Complain about this comment

There is Innovation with GNU Desktops!

@PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.:
Stop it Pitr, that is too funny, go back into you Cartoon at Userfriendly.org. I love that Language though...

Actually GNU/Linux was never meant for Innovation. It was just some good peoples thought to make a free OS that isn't bound to have the same fate as Unix had - to be Patented and Licensed by Companies while actually coded for free distrubution purposes not even by these Companies.
It was just thought of a Unix alternative to run Unix Application. Early Desktops resembled the Acorn a lot and also the Solaris and Irix or AIX Desktops of that time.
Gnome and KDE were never a Solution for the People who actually worked on the Linuxkernel. They were just adopted by a large Mass of Flies which tasted the Shit Microsoft produced and like Flies usually do, couldn't get enough of that.

Actually XFCE or Enlightment are no Desktops just plain windowmakers, you could use that with any Desktop Enviroment. And Roxfiler is just the Desktop, you can use it with any Desktopless Windowmanager like fluxbox or blackbox.
Enviroment is a really important addition to the Desktop term, because actually a Linuxdistribution is even more than a Desktop. A Desktop only has the Applications who everybody uses, that would be something to Write, a Calculator, Clock, A Filemanager and nowadays also some Game and something like Powerpointless. But Linux is a lot more than that. It also brings specialised Applications and more Important - you have the Choice. You have the Choice everytime, you have it when you choose your Distribution, when you choose Your Desktop, Windowmaker, Emerge or Synaptic, OO Draw or Scribus, vi or emacs. Thats the whole Point of Linux, thats what is actually totally different from any OS. If you want to use those Programms that resemble windows - go on, thats your Choice like everything in GNU is Your Choice.

Actually there is Innovation on the Linuxdesktop. Linux has evilved so much and there are so many free programmers that contribute to a Software Pool that even Microsoft isn't able to hire a similar working Force. So of course there is a lot of Innovation and its only time when Linux is taking over Windows. It takes a lot of time though, but isn't it quite a often Paradoxon that People get most conservative which Brand they choose when it comes to things like Cars, Mobiles or Computers that change faster than their brain can think?
Beryl, now Compiz Fusion was a real Innovation in user Interface. and Compiz was also the first implementation of a 3D desktop and Microsoft is the Follower as will Apple. If you configure it right it can be a really useful addition to a desktop System. The problem is that it is still too complicated for people. If its about User Interfaces the people don't want to have the choice, they just want something preconfigured which they don't have to setup. But of course the preconfigured thing must work for them like they want it. 
- It doesn't do that often. But even if there is the choice to set it up like they expect it to look and function, they just don't take that Choice.

- Thats Users... can't complain about that, am only Sysadmin no Techsupport, they have a lot more to complain than me... its only the Users Choice to get a better and more economic Desktop, but they don't take it, they always miss choices, must be some kind of fate that only IT Tech can even see the Choices...

posted by : David Burkhardt, 07 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Patent blocks ahead? Never

Well, I am an application developer of Linux. As we know, recently a newly popular UI called multi-finger touch is raised by Apple iPhone. Now guess what? tons of products would use this. But wait! Lots of lots of patents block ahead, they must pay for them. Well...?
I am researching for a new possible substitute, I do not know if patent would block me. I found MPX at http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/mpx/
So, imagine that if your gadget device equipped with ordinary single point touch screen with an extra tracker-based mouse; and you have two hands. Now it is a poor but maybe new idea of X Window system is born. The only thing would be a killer application (or maybe a powerful window manager) to deal with two mouse cursors. So, how about this? Now just open VI and write down some GPL codes for remain of us to reuse. That's collaborated innvoation.

posted by : Anthony Faye, 07 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Let's get this right

I don't know where to start. 1st off, I agree that MS has done a great job. Their suckses is attributable to solid software, continous support, and drop-dead competitivenes. But... MSDOS 1.x was a purchase of a CP/M adaptation to the emerging 16bit hardware. (Even the COPY command was an external program based on PIP.) Then lets look at MSDOS 2.0. Shades of Look And Feel! All of a sudden we have a Unix clone! The MORE command, the pipe "|" operator, heirarchical subdirectories (MS used "\" instead of Unix's "/".) , STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR, and of course MS's rediculous STDPRT. Not only that, but if you were into programming at the time, you would have seen that the entire methode of defining and addressing files changed to the Unix "File Handle" paradigm, from the previous CP/M structure. MS did not purchase this stuff, just took advantage of the fact that Bell Labs was already making the Unix source available to universities. Ok. On to the Windows GUI... Right, Xerox PARC was the origin. Apple was who brought it to market. MS's first Windows, released overseas, was a really bad knockoff of Apple's OS. Anybody Anybody who was into McIntosh laughed at early Windows! And another point regarding Unix vs Windows... If memory serves, all the versions of Windows until version 98 could not even multitask 2 programs! MS relied on something called "cooperative mutitasking" in which a program had to specially compiled to allow the OS to multitask. Note the pre-emptive scheduling has been around a long time. Hey. (Anyone still use a parallel-port printer? Watch what happens TODAY as XP Pro spools your print job.) ....Yes, it is true that the Linux, etc., crowd must follow the GUI desktop wave. And its also true that *nix will prob never run games like MS. But. If you read read some reviews about *nix clones(Anandtech comes to mind), you'll find that keeping many programs running at the same time is no problem. And you'll also see that when the output from A is piped ("|") into B, and then piped into C, All three programs fire up immediately, rather than A buffering to a file, then B reading it and buffering to a file, then C firing up and reading that one. Ok, 1 last comment... Before MSDOS was even marketed, Unix coders, in order to compile a program that uses the "curses" library, you had to include the "windows" library.
.

posted by : Kilo4delta, 08 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Car look and feel

A comment was made about cars (gear shift, four wheels, etc.). What folks may not realize is that there were as many (and in inflation adjusted dollars) even more expensive lawsuits about just these things (with a couple of recent lawsuits over windshield wipers). There were lawsuits over how to start the car (button on dash, button on floor), the shift lever on the dashboard was patented, but (if I recall) the floor shift was ruled unpatentable while the column shift WAS patented, etc.

A LOT of money was spent.

posted by : DR, 07 November 2007 Complain about this comment

Linux is driven by the wrong reason

The main point in this article is very valid.

Linux has turned into an alternative OS solution for what in the old days was called the "IBM PC", nowadays referred to as commodity hardware. It did not come from a need of an unsupported task completion or improving how a user can interact with a computer. It came from people wanting to do their "own" system, more or less for the pride of it. That means "Computer Geeks" for most of us. 

What made Commodore, Apple, DR (for Atari) or even Microsoft very different is that they tried (or still try) to give people an easier time to accomplish tasks. I have not seen any groundbreaking solution from the Linux crowd and frankly believes this is the greatest downside of the open source community. It takes vision and a certain amount of dictatorship over all people involved to pull that feat off.

Yes Linux is free and would (if it became the defacto standard OS) stop any single company from taking monopoly over the OS market. But that is the only really good thing about it. Talk of optimised code is completely irrelevant to 99,9% of the population. 

I mean since Linux "copies" Windows in sake of getting people to move over to Linux, what are we really accomplishing? We might save a buck or two, but we are not improving the lives of the users. And don't tell me that we can move them over to something else later. The "I go for what I'm used to" principle would prevent that.

In my eyes that is the really interesting point in this article. Where is the vision? What is the real drive? The truth, in my eyes, is that Linux will be the geeky system forever, used by a minority of people who "know better". Or like to think so. The only thing that can change that, is if someone starts looking at the creation of a GUI from the groundlevel up, in relation to the 2007 (or even 2012...) needs from a user perspective. What do people want to accomplish today? How can we empower them in the best way? There is a massive potential since both Mac and Windows have a certain amount of need to maintain a status quo for sakes of future sales to existing users.

So, Who is looking out for the stuff that we want to do in the future?

posted by : 25 years of GUI, 08 November 2007 Complain about this comment

KDE does support Alt-F4 by default

"[Gnome] even uses most of Windows' keystrokes, like Alt-F4 to close a window, which, oddly, the slightly more Windows-like KDE doesn't."

KDE does by default, unless your distribution has overridden this. kcontrol > Regional & Accessibility > Keyboard Shortcuts > Shortcut Schemes > Close Window : Alt+F4.

posted by : James Shaw, 20 November 2007 Complain about this comment

You need to learn more about alternative early computing

You did not do your research on the Amiga. Your link only mentioned that it was "Macintosh like", and that is what you parroted. Load save on the Amigas Workbench were standardised in 1985, and included the ability to type a file or location.

The Amiga may have had a similar direction (The Macintosh, Atari ST and Amiga all were released within a short period of time, about 12 months of each other. It is hard for one to copy the other without industrial espionage. 

Have a look. You will find the Amigas interface pioneered multiple desktops (in a stack interface), resizing drag bars (depending on how many icons are in the window. They also patented this feature and Microsoft stole it before Commodore disappeared, though Microsoft never felt the need to buy the Commodore patents), CLI from the desktop, animated icons, and many other desktop UI innovations.

The Amigas software pioneered much of what was to come in programs like Photoshop. Layers, painting modes, etc.

Not to mention the things Adobe copied from Quantel, andthen had to prove that others had prior art for these tools that predated Quantels use.

You seem to believe that the world started with Microsoft and Apple. It did not. They have added to the modern toolset, but no one company today can claim that they have not blatantly copied features from a prior system (normally without payment to the patent holder), which now makes any claims by Microsoft hilariously hypocritical. [This thread is over. Ed.]

posted by : NotSure, 01 December 2007 Complain about this comment

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