LinuxPlanet: .comment: The Developers Haven’t Heard

“As one distributor after another moves away from the idea of
selling desktop Linux to mere people, it becomes increasingly clear
that the developer community hasn’t gotten word that Linux isn’t
suited to be a desktop operating system for the likes of me and
thee.”

“Good.”

“On Monday, GNOME 1.4 either was or wasn’t released, and if it
wasn’t we can pretty well assume it will oneday be. (I write this
on Monday with the issue still in doubt.) When it is, my colleague
Michael P. Hall, who has really cool initials, will very ably tell
you about it.”

“And though GNOME is not my desktop of choice, surely it is the
one that seems most specifically aimed at the single-machine
desktop user as opposed to the enterprise, what with the variety of
content provision either offered or envisioned for it. I suppose
there are ways that this could be turned to the advantage of
businesses, but it is the single/home/hobbyist market that seems to
me to be most likely to make use of these services. If the desktop
is no place for Linux, the people at GNOME (and Ximian and Eazel)
haven’t heard about it.”

“Nor have the people involved with KDE, where some exciting
stuff is going on…”

Complete
Story