Fredag 01 desember 2006 07:48, skrev Andreas Tille: > I never ever understanded the attraction of KDE regarding > usability.
Usability is a huge field to cower. It's not exact science. But there are guidelines and experiences out there. This experience you could utilise. I think the OpenUsability project[1] is real good. A nice interview with Jan Mühlig[2] gives a summary of the work: 1. http://openusability.org/ 2. http://dot.kde.org/1164982554/ I need to warn Andreas Tille and others using arguments as "I never understand the attraction of KDE regarding usability." Such statement don't address usability at all. Unfortunately it could even fuel the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) stating that Linux desktop as inferior to Windows and Mac. Even if Andreas does not wan't that, Microsoft and their fans know to exploit this. They falsely belief that: "With Windows you get one solution, you have one desktop who everyone knows. It's easy to learn. You don't need to educate users. Switching to Linux is just much more expensive". It's even worse. The Microsoft fans get help from "Linux purists" talking negative about other desktop solution. Of course Andreas, your statement was just a personal viewpoint. Your intention was not to hit Linux. Anyway, In my experience the statement about KDE has wider ramifications (and likewise if the same had been said about GNOME or Xfce). * Let me explain. It's reported that Miguel de Icaza and Nathaniel Friedman has visited different school district, planning to deploy KDE desktop, and tried to get them over to GNOME. There are still scarce resources when it comes to deploy large free software installations in schools. Instead of reusing knowledge and experiences to win new municipalities over from Windows, they uses their resources to fight Linux and free software where Linux it's already winning. When Miguel and Nathaniel attacking other free software solutions, they also fuelling the FUD against Linux. They present the common beliefs amongst Windows purists, helping them to promote products from Microsoft. So what Miguel de Icaza and Nathaniel Friedman have done is good news people betting their salary on Microsoft. The Microsoft purist will do whatever it takes to stop Linux. They will tell that Linux is not ready for the desktop. You have probably heard all the other FUD too. Microsoft marketing department don't need to use billions discrediting Linux, the Linux users does it them self. As reported earlier (at the Norwegian Skolelinux list), also the Novell sales organisation discredit free software developers, talking unfavourable about contributions done voluntarily. Sales representatives from Novell says that the translations done in GNOME sucks, because a potential customer discovered the term "kill" in a menu (not translated to Norwegian as it should). This customer was using Windows. Then Linux was not acceptable on the desktop. This is one of the reasons the head of Novell in Norway characterises Skolelinux to be a kid room project, and warns about the long haired free software developers. Strangely, the quality work done with KDE translations in Norway already removed the "kill" in menu items long time ago. It was replaced by the Norwegian word "avbryt" (en: kill -> no: avbryt). We also gave feedback on our language lists, wich is shared by translators of free software, also the GNOME translators. But Novell did not contact the free software developers. Instead they discredit the voluntary work, not telling us, just complain and diskredit other Linux vendors. Side story: Novell promotes GNOME as their enterprise desktop. That was one of the issues that made Novell loose the Munich case to Debian, insiders tells me. After Munich had required KDE, Novell told that they would ditch the KDE support. If Munich should choose SuSE they had to change to GNOME. The city did not want to be looked in once more. That was one of the main arguments against upgrading to a newer version of Microsoft Windows. Munich also evaluated the enterprise capabilities in KDE to be better than GNOME. Just a couple of weeks after Novell ditched KDE they told that they had included it once more. IBM and SuSE put a lot of money into winning this case. An smaller German firm won the contract with Debian. This shows that Linux looses when free software people discrediting free software contributors and solutions. By favouring one desktop solution on the cost of other solutions, you are attacking a major strong point on Linux. I've compiled a list of usable arguments to prof that Linux is as good, or even better than Windows: -- Whether the windows system are Gnome or KDE, both desktops are completely understandable and useable for people. 1. Schools using Skolelinux are satisfied with the choice, and would do it again[3]. Kids experience that Windows XP is more difficult to use[4]. Reports from schools tells that it's more easy to switch from Windows to Linux than to switch from Windows 3.11 to 98 (many schools still uses Windows 98). 3. http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/3373 4. http://reallylinux.com/docs/linuxforkids.shtml 2. Usability report states that Windows XP is inefficient compared to Windows 2000. Fabian von Schéele and his team discovered[5][6]: [...] faster processors and the latest operating system does not automatically lead to an increase in productivity. As the study demonstrated, this can in fact be counterproductive, a result which cannot be ascribed to the users' lack of familiarity with the new software. 5. http://computersweden.idg.se/2.139/1.44327 6. (pdf page 41) http://library.eawag-empa.ch/publications/Empa_Annual_Report_2004.pdf 3. Two days of training is enough to switch from Windows to Linux on the desktop, which is the same as what most enterprises budget for a Windows/MS Office version upgrade: one day to acquaint users with the desktop, and one day to introduce the OpenOffice suite. http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/08/13/1424212 -- Having different desktops is a good thing. Computers are used in a variety of situations from mobile phones to large computer clusters. To choose just one software supplier is hazardous. 1. If your company uses a supplier of mission critical tools. An oil company will not by drills in a marked with just one single vendor. It's a requirement that there are two different vendors when buying drills. Computer departments stating that they will stick to Windows, are an hazard to their business. When it comes to communications, industry or other businesses, everyone takes the multi vendor approach. Even Linux does that. Why do you by all your mission critical from Microsoft? 2. This richness of choices makes it possible to tailor the desktop to different users and groups of users. A healthy competition between different desktop projects makes it more easy to find a desktop tailored for your need. Schools, municipalities, public and private companies has deployed Linux desktops with success due to the tailorability. 3. The Portland Project[7] makes it easy to configure and give native look and feel on Linux desktops. That makes developers choice of GUI-tools less important. They can chose the developer tools they want, and support native look and feel without excluding others. 7. http://portland.freedesktop.org/wiki/Portland 8. http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/10/11/1355201 4. If you using Microsoft, it's is no thing as one desktop. It's at least 7 different desktops launched the last eight years. The different versions are not compatible. Major products as MS Office just runs on two versions of Windows. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_versions It's was not maintainable to install MS Office 97 on Windows XP. You can't maintain MS Office Vista on Windows 2000. In general Microsoft does not support older versions of Windows with their Office suite or developer tools. Free software usually support all versions since Windows 98. One example is OpenOffice.org which makes it possible to delay Windows upgrades with 2-5 years. -- When using Windows only, your organisation should probably update the hardware every 3-4 year, Microsoft says. Gartner says 5 year before upgrading Windows hardware. Using Linux you can use the same hardware for 8-10 years. Huge real life deployment and use of Linux shows a decrease in hardware cost by 50% compared to Windows. Linux uses less memory, states independent reports. When changing to MS Active Directory and Exchange on Vista, it's 64 bit support only. You have to ditch your 32 bit servers. Computer department in general does not calculate the real cost of upgrading to the next version of Windows, when they complain about the cost switching to Linux. Many computer department has not calculated the operational cost at all. Independent reports done shows that Linux is 80% cheaper when comparing software cost. Linux is 50% cheaper comparing hardware, and 20% less expensive comparing cost of maintenance. * The important highlights -- The desktop is about having easy access to basic applications as browser, e-mail-client, multimedia tools, educational programs etc. It's not about KDE, GNOME or Xfce. People focusing on one of the desktops over the other is dangering our effort getting free software deployed. -- At least half the Linux users use an other desktop than what you prefer (or the persons you know). To choose one desktop over another could alienate a lot of users. It's hazardous to depended on one single vendor. To favour one single desktop is counter productive. All the desktop effort with Linux proves the success, utilising the tailorability for different users. In a world with different people, we need to make different solutions addressing the different needs and expectations. Proprietary software licenses does the opposite. Just read the Microsoft End User License Agreement, and you will see that you can't tailor the system to your end users need as easy as with free software. -- The strongest part of Linux is the desktop competition, where developers, users and others makes evolutionary improvements. Working together in a joint effort, learning from each other, will improve the Linux desktop even better. In my view developers and users should spend more time learn what could be gain by joining projects as OpenUsability: http://openusability.org/ It's about bridging the gap between developer and users. I've got an old article on that from Jonathan Grudin, who now works for Microsoft: http://research.microsoft.com/~jgrudin/past/Papers/IEEE91/IEEE91.html To end my line of argument about choices, I'm addressing an important issue, making the improvements available for all: Some "free software" projects also treat software as it is a "dead end". The tailoring done in the project is not committed upstream to the source. Patches and improvements are stopped along the way. In my view projects as LinEx (Extremadura), Ubuntu, meDUXa could do more making patches easy available upstream. This was debated at Debconf 6: http://business.newsforge.com/business/06/05/22/1240231.shtml I know that both Ubuntu and meDUXa targeting this. Ubuntu is improving. LinEx has told me their interest in contributing upstream to reduce the maintenance cost. meDUXa will release willow the Debian recommendations. I hope that everyone takes the time to commit contributions upstream. It will make tailoring and choosing the preferred solution more easy for everyone. Best regards Knut Yrvin
