(Dermot) RE: RE: (Dermot) RE: I know English

[Dermot]

You are a programmer so unix suits you better.

I think they are all severely lacking (OSs). I mainly use Linux/Gnome or Linux/Windowmaker. The first combination gives a lot that a non-programmer should rightly demand from a modern operating system and desktop environment while the second combination doesn't.

KDE2 is out for the last couple of weeks and is very useable by all accounts. The fact that there is competition between the Gnome and KDE teams (and there is competition than any of the developers will openly admin to) spurs them both on to bigger and better things.

These are fairly fundamental parts of human nature and as a result economics. Monopolies ultimately fall on their own sword and die. It is a fact of life. It doesn't mean the Microsoft is bad. It doesn't mean that Microsoft will disappear. It just means that there will and should be choices, competition and freedom.

As seen in a sig recently; thirty years of computer science research and all we've got to show for it is a talking paperclip.

[princepawn]

You have identified what I see as the Achilles' Heel of Linux: at least on Windows, there arent two different GUI APIs and all GUI software for a particular Windows platform will work for all machines on that platform.

With Linux, you may be in GUI hog heaven one day only to find out that the next thing you need has only been written for the other Window System.

[Dermot]

Yes, having two desktop environments complicates matters as you have to decide which one to develop for but it all balances out in the end. Diversity and balance insist that this is so.

If someone doesn't like some open source code they just rewrite it. I see similarities between this approach to software development and the feedback mechanisms employed by nature. Many parts of a human body rely on feedback mechanisms and emulating nature is all we ever really do.