Linux and Main: A Glimpse of the Future? I Hope So

“The minders ushered me into the dimly lit hut built of rough
wood and palm fronds. They pointed to a place where I could sit.
Then we waited. In a few minutes, the elder came in, then one of
the chiefs. I was about to be shown something few outsiders had
seen.

“After the ritual discussion of other things, the tall, animated
chief motioned for me to approach. And then he showed me the
current state of Ximian Desktop 2.0. It is very cool.

“The scene, of course, was the Ximian booth at last week’s
LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in New York, and the person
demonstrating the product was Nat Friedman, the company’s vice
president of product development. I’d been after him for a peek at
the GNOME 2.0-based version of Ximian’s desktop since about five
minutes after GNOME 2.0 was released last year, and it may be that
the easiest way of getting me to go away was just to show me the
thing.

“The new version–and bear in mind, this is not yet release
code–is instantly attractive. It does not depart hugely from GNOME
2.0, but where it does it is impressive…”

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