[ Thanks to Mosfet for this link. ]
“A big debate these days seems to be focused on how configurable
the Linux desktop should be. KDE has always taken the approach that
users will have different preferences on how they like to work so
the UI should be as flexible and configurable as possible. Gnome 2
has taken the direction that ‘less-is-more; and that the
configurability in Linux desktops, including Gnome 1.x, was clutter
and confusing to the end-user. This has resulted in some pundits
calling for KDE to remove some of it’s configurability.“The thing all people who argue for less configurability in
Linux desktops have in common, whether they are Sun usability teams
or Linux editorial pundits, is that they all presume to know how
you should work and what a GUI should look like. If you believe
your way of doing things is the ‘one true way’ then making things
configurable is a waste of time and space. Some pundits in
particular have insisted that KDE developers should listen to them,
do things their way, then remove configuration options to ‘clean up
clutter in the UI.’“KDE does not make such presumptions. Some people prefer
single-click, others can’t work without double-clicking. Some Mac
users prefer window close buttons on the left, Windows users expect
it to be on the right. Some people like icons on their desktop for
devices, others don’t. Some old school Unix people hate to work
without window focus following the mouse, but this would confuse
the hell out of non-Unix people. Don’t even get me started on
button order. Some KDE people have already started talking about
making it configurable in dialogs–probably much to the dismay of
those who believe they know ‘the one true way’ despite that
different users have expressed opposite opinions…”