<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Aug 16, 2007, at 3:49 PM, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">On Thursday 16 August 2007, Guillaume Laurent wrote:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Well, too bad for him, but I think we can do without people who can't </DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">think out of their own geek-pink bubble.</DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">If we're talking about being able to do without people, maybe we can do<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">without people who think they can do without a class of people they feel free<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">to dismiss with a pejorative epithet?</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I was thinking of people who insist on their own pet visual style even though it looks obsolete.</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Because we've got plenty of hands on board to actually finish the thing per<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">spec and on time, of course. We can easily afford to junk contributors<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">because they don't agree with you.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Seriously, if someone jumps ship just because KDE takes a business/market-oriented direction (which pretty much means that it starts tackling needs of non-geek users), is that "junking" him ? In my mind it's more like he's just being immature. </DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">And sure, an attractive default style is important. Keramik lost us an<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">enormous amount of potential users right at the time when lots of people were<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">moving to Linux. When Keramik was default, none of my co-workers who switched<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">became KDE users. They all picked Gnome, on looks.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>That's exactly what I mean. I'd bet looks also played a large part in Ubuntu's initial choice of Gnome over KDE (that and the number of options in the control panel).</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Whether Oxygen will do any better is something I really doubt. It's too much<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">look-at-the-cool-widgets-not-your-work with at the same time an acute lack of<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">any contrast so it takes real effort to see the state of the widgets properly.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I can't say anything about Oxygen. At least the icons look nice (rather OSX-ish). </DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">But what do I know. I code nowadays, so I haven't got any aesthetic sense,<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">ipso facto. Oh wait, that's true for my ex-co-workers, too. They were coders<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">and project leads. Their opinion doesn't count. We wouldn't have wanted them<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">as users anyway.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>You may have aesthetic sense (although from a statistical point of view, given the sheer number of enlightenment-gothic-matrix-jessica-alba-theme screenshots over those which are, well, not eye-piercing, assuming a coder has aesthetic sense isn't a safe bet), you won't have any sense of usability though, because your way of using a machine is just so different from a normal user, and your understanding of it makes it impossible for you to put yourself in his shoes. There's a reason why (good) usability is done by different people than programmers, because not only is it a completely different set of skills, it's also something programmer minds are generally too warped to do properly.</DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>--</DIV><DIV>Guillaume </DIV><DIV><A href="http://telegraph-road.org">http://telegraph-road.org</A></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>