[ Thanks to BeOpen
for this link. ]
“As a veteran of Steve Jobs’ original MacOS team, Hertzfeld’s
participation in the development of both Linux and the GNOME
graphical user interface has attracted more than its fair share of
media attention. While some articles have painted Hertzfeld as the
grown up coming to show the kids how to turn the free software
operating system into a truly user-friendly piece of technology,
Hertzfeld prefers to see himself as a “link in the chain,” a tribal
elder capable of bridging the remaining philosophical gap between
the 1970s-era homebrew culture and 21st Century Internet hacker
culture”.
“The most exciting thing about the computer is that it’s a meta
machine,” he says, alluding to both cultures’ passion for
customizability and configurability. “There’s nothing, or very
little, set in stone. You’re building a world out of dreams. And so
I want to empower every range of user to be able to customize it. I
think the network gives us more of an opportunity than we’ve had in
the past.”
“Unfortunately, Hertzfeld notes, the network also introduces
more problems as operating systems become less localized and more
network-based. Instead of dumbing down or putting an updated
Macintosh face on the Linux OS, Hertzfeld says the central theme of
Eazel is to improve the three way relationship between man, machine
and the network at large.“