Why Can't Free Software GUIs be Empowering Instead of Limiting?

"It's one of the more popular culture wars in the free software community: GUI versus CLI (graphics versus the command-line). Programmers, by selection, inclination, and long experience, understandably are attracted to textual interactions with the computer, but the text interface was imposed originally by technological limitations. The GUI was introduced as a reply to those problems, but has undergone very little evolution from 1973 (when it was invented at Xerox PARC) to today. So why can't we do better than either of these tired old systems...?"

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Related Stories:

• Free Software Magazine: User Interfaces Should Teach, Not Hide(Aug 10, 2006)
• ZDNet: Next-Generation Shells--Is Linux Falling Behind?(Dec 29, 2004)
• DesktopOS: Two Years Before the Prompt: A Linux Odyssey(Sep 11, 2004)
• ONLamp: How Do You Bridge the CLI vs. GUI Gap in App. Design?(Jul 20, 2004)