an article about desktop

[ubuntu at rio.vg]

A. Kudryashov wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> Did anybody read this one?
> http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/261/1/
> 
> IMHO ubuntu also choose wrong direction (with others).
> 

Frankly, this guy is yet another pundit without a clue.  XGL/Compiz is
just one project, still being worked on, off to the side.  The guy talks
like Linux is made by a single company whose workers should be working
on what he likes and not waste their time on graphics pretties.

That's simply not the way open source works.  People work on whatever
they want to work on.  If the people working on XGL/Compiz were to give
up on it, they wouldn't likely join OpenOffice.org.  Open Source does
not have finite resources to be directed at the whim of a yet another
megalomaniacal CEO.  People working on one project don't lessen those
working on others.

He rants against XGL as frivolous, and while right now it is certainly
primarily eye candy, he is ignoring the very real benefits of having the
entire screen rendered through 3d channels rather than 2d.  Better font
rendering and the cube for desktop switching are both great
improvements, and who knows what they'll think of next?

OpenSource is not directed.  It evolves naturally based on consensus,
rather than the whims of a director.  So far, I think it's done a pretty
damn good job.  Declaring that it should bend over to one niche or the
other is simply absurd.  Linux is incredibly adaptable, why cage the tiger?