Am Donnerstag den, 21. M=E4rz 2002, um 10:48, schrieb paul beard:

> Jason R Thorpe wrote:
>
>> And how does providing a nice desktop environment for those who wish
>> to use such a thing change that?  After all, the underlying =
mechanisms
>> are still there for people who wish to use them.
>
> Isn't this the promise of GNOME, KDE and Mac OS X? Why does this have=20=

> to be an either/or game? Why can't one have a well-designed responsive=20=

> desktop (a gestural interface, if you like) with access to the power =
of=20
> the command line tools? Until Fink came along, OS X was unusable as =
far=20
> as was concerned. It bridged the gap between the commercial apps (the=20=

> lingua franca of computing: even Office 98 is perfectly useable) and=20=

> the open source world.

I'm pretty disappointed in Mac OS X at the kernel/driver level. I've=20
expressed this
to the point of being dismissed out of hand by most.

However, in the case of GNOME, KDE and any one of {Linux,FreeBSD,NetBSD}
(ie those OS's that I've tried), none would be 'easy to use' by most=20
users of
computers. I think this is directly related to their being done either=20=

by the
largess of some corporation, or folks that have income by other means.=20=

Perhaps
there is some small subset of folk who do make a living by supporting=20
these things,
but they are so small in number and unable to deal with the large set of=20=

problems
that exists, even in hardware which has some claim to a 'standard'.

I don't expect this to change one iota in any 'settlement' between=20
Microsoft and
the US Justice Dept. The only 'settlement' I see coming out of this is=20=

that
a few large software suppliers might be able to stick their widgets into=20=

MS OS
systems, a few hardware manufacturers will provide slightly different=20
system
OS installations, but that's about it.

I think the path of the BeOS is an object lesson on what will await any=20=

investment
in 'alternatives to MS' for the PC world, or 'Mac OS' for the Apple=20
world.

At the moment, for the young technically inclined I recommend a study =
and
career path which involves becoming a corporate lawyer specializing in
patent/trade-secret/anti-trust law as more profitable than actually=20
producing
something useful.

Sorry, I'm perhaps entering an even more cynical period about things...