Re: [chat] Re: [SLUG] OT: Vector data on Sydney CBD

[invisible ink <jdub@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

begin Jon Biddell quotation:

> > This is not true. The actual Linux system is very hard - the desktops
> > are not. Certainly, some tweaking is required, and the kind of awareness
> > of usability issues that runs through GNOME will assist third party
> > developers to write good, usable software.
> 
> Sorry, I disagree (with the desktop comment). Give a Gnome desktop to a
> (l)user who hasn't used Windows and you might be right  - but give one to
> a Windows user (and these are the ones we are trying to convert) and they
> get confused - yes, because of their expoeriences with Windows their
> perception is distorted, but they still "perfer" Windows.

Migration will always be hard, but preferences change. Many Windows users,
seeing a beautiful, usable GNOME desktop for the first time are entranced.

I'll pull out one comment from above:

> (and these are the ones we are trying to convert)

And disagree, quoting maddog. Whenever usability conversations come up on
the various GNOME lists, I use this to fend off the "but what about those
Windows users who will have to change their behaviour?!" arguments:

  "There are 5.6 billion people in the world, and approximately 400 million
  installed operating systems. That means 5.2 billion people have yet to
  choose their operating system, and we have to get to them before Bill
  does." - Jon 'maddog' Hall

In lingua hacker: Optimise for the common case.

> >  WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES YOU THINK WINDOWS IS EASY TO USE?
> >
> >It's not. It's just there a lot.
> 
> I wholeheartedly agree - but I still think we should be ailimg for world 
> domination of the back end (server) area first...:-)

Then we'd be making exactly the same mistake as Sun... They've realised that
to truly dominate the server market, you need to take a good shot at the
desktop. (The same doesn't entirely hold true for Linux, given the
interoperability and standards compliance we almost take for granted - but
when you're talking about Free Software desktops/servers, it's similar.)

- ii

-- 
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