A terrific post, and spot on on almost everything. My one quibble: I don't think it's a matter of more GUI and less command line. One of the glories of the way Open Source works is that we can have more of both, and, for many things, mix and match as personal preference dictates. On Monday 28 January 2002 11:55 am, you wrote: > I'm enjoying reading this conversation. In my 20-odd years of experience > providing computer support to home and office users, it's my impression > that most users care about three things: learning as little as possible, > getting their work (or play) done, and exchanging files with other users. > > The way I see it, Linux is imitating Windows not because Windows is good, > but because it's the de-facto standard. If you're designing a new car, it > doesn't matter how different it is from a Chevy under the hood, but it had > better have the controls in roughly the same places as a Chevy or very few > people will take the trouble to learn to drive it. > > It is of course true, as Florin says, that babies point at things, but as > they grow up they learn to talk, and you could go further and say that they > learn to type instead of talking so much. But drivers don't operate their > cars by talking or typing, and there's a good reason for that: inanimate > objects (such as engines, tires, roadblocks, etc.) respond to actions, not > to words. And although a GUI is more work for a programmer than a command > line, it's no less natural for the computer, whose native language is not > English any more than it's point-and-click. > > Where I'm going is that the OSes that gain desktop market share will be the > ones that let people learn as little as possible, get their work done, and > exchange files with other users. If that means more GUI and less command > line, then I'm sorry, but there will be less command line. And if it means > that Linux looks and feels and acts more like Windows in some respects, > then as much as we hate Windows, that's where Linux will have to go to gain > desktops. --Ben > _______________________________________________ > Twin Cities Linux Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, > Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list