Re: A Violent Realisation [Was: Preferences]

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel ximian com>]

>   There needs to be a violent realisation that empowerment through usability
>   far exceeds the possibility of empowerment through gimmickry. [1]

This is a nice thesis Jeff, and it would work fine in a vacuum.  

Today people are trained in using existing systems, and when they look
at a Linux desktop, they are looking at a viable solution to replace
their desktops with.

And unless you can come up with a user interface that is not ten percent
better, but two or three times better, you are not being competitive
with other existing solutions (KDE for example).

Research belongs into research-land.  And when good research exists, it
can be incorporated into products.   But forcing a production desktop
like GNOME (and even at this late stage of GNOME 2) to follow some
mantra and some HIG that have not been tested on a grand scale seems
like a bad idea, and that is why you see people like Dick opposing the
plan.

I want to get work done just as much as you do, but reading this thread
is scaring me.  It scares me because I am thinking `I am being
marginalized, and my feature I depend on will not be there, and I will
end up running some other desktop that does do what I need'.

So do not go around scaring old people like me, we have no longer the
hearth condition to assimilate it like you young guys.

Miguel