<div class="gmail_quote">On 10 June 2010 11:40, Dylan McCall <<a href="mailto:dylanmccall@gmail.com">dylanmccall@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"> <div class="im">> To be serious, I don't like this kind of forcing one's own view of > usability onto the users. GNU/Linux is all about free customization. > Give the user your preferred applications, but let him choose what > he/she wants to use. </div>GNU/Linux is absolutely not “about” anything, especially not free customization at runtime. If we are going to do this, it's all about freely modifying source code and building those customized solutions. With that said, Linux is (or should be) less about confusing runtime options than the proprietary competition. With them, those are necessities because they want to keep users happy but don't want to give them source code. Over here, we can afford to make decisive design choices to keep the platform sane and simple. If people disagree with those choices, they can make their own modifications to the software, or use someone else's modified version. Look at the mobile phone space. We have stuff like WebOS and Maemo, which are both built on top of common bits we use here on the desktop. (Actually, a surprising and pleasing number of them). Neither of those operating systems has a button to configure the panels or revert to volume-control-like-2009. But you have a choice in using them. Importantly, the developers of those operating systems were able to leverage the platform and its open source nature to build those amazing operating systems exactly the way they were meant to be, without any loose ends or wiggly bits. Naturally, WebOS and Android have some of the best SDKs out there. Why shouldn't that be allowed on the desktop? </blockquote><div> End-user here. I find these sentiments very disturbing. If I wanted something locked down I'd buy a stevePad or steveBook or steveMac. Anzan </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"> </blockquote></div>