[Desktop_architects] Portland: How to fix this situation

Kay Ramme - Sun Germany - Hamburg Kay.Ramme at Sun.COM
Fri Dec 9 09:14:45 PST 2005


Otto,

as outlined by you correctly, the critical thing for Linux Desktop 
adoption is a viable migration path. This path is, amongst other things, 
defined by the applications users are used to use. Basically none of our 
(StarOffice / OpenOffice.org) customers ever made a hard step to the 
Linux desktop, nearly all are still using Windows for smaller or bigger 
fractions. So, Windows being by far our biggest market.

It is IMHO still the right approach, to define usage scenarios and to 
understand which applications are needed for these scenarios, but, the 
success of such a scenario will be much greater, if the Linux 
applications are going to be the _same_ as the Windows applications. 
Applications can either be cross platform (e.g. like Firefox or 
OpenOffice.org) or be enabled by Wine.

A typical migration path IMHO looks like this:
 IE -> Firefox
 MS Office -> OpenOffice.org
 Outlook -> Thunderbird& Evolution?
 ...
 Windows -> Linux

As the Wine people said, it may probably be much easier to migrate 
Windows users to Linux by using and improving Wine, than to write better 
counterparts for most Windows applications, not leveraging the Windows 
focused software industry. Linux counterparts are probably only needed 
for these Windows applications, which are unlikely to ever work together 
with Wine.


Kay



Otto Wyss wrote:

> This discussion about "The Linux Desktop Integration Interface" is 
> really amazing to read, it looks so obvious to me that the top 
> inhibitor for a Linux desktop adoption is the application shortage 
> (http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005.pdf). No user will 
> buy or use a system which he doesn't feel comfortable. And that's no 
> wonder when everything is just different and nothing looks familiar. 
> But how can an ordinary user get familiar when there are only 
> Linux-Only and Windows-Only applications (except of course OpenOffice 
> and Firefox)? Why do you think the majority requests Windows 
> applications, simply because there's a majority of Windows users 
> without any chance to ever have used a Linux-Only application! So if 
> the Linux desktop eventually shall become successful all these 
> Linux-Only applications have to be made cross-platform!
>
> Changing Linux-Only application to cross-platform has another 
> important effect. As soon as the Windows-Only ISV's see the rising 
> competition from the Linux side, they're forced to change also to 
> cross-platform just to try to eliminate any competition. I'm quite 
> sure as soon as one side starts this process, the other side will 
> immediately follow. End result => no shortage!
>
> I've heard the argument that users won't switch to Linux when 
> everything is also available on Windows. Come on, if Linux doesn't 
> have other arguments and can't stand this, then it's not worth to 
> discuss any further.
>
> As OpenOffice and Mozilla-Firefox proves cross-platform is possible 
> and these two projects are highly successfully. Only cross-platform 
> projects will get enough attraction so the may become top projects. Of 
> course cross-platform, how it is done in these 2 projects, isn't cheap 
> and involves quite a lot of work. Again there is a much simpler way 
> almost without any costs but see later.
>
> There are numerous ways how to achieve cross-platform better and 
> worse. Just look once at Gimp, a fantastic application but their GUI 
> is so high sophisticate no ordinary user can grasp it. I myself am too 
> stupid to grasp its advantages albeit I'm able to use it. I wouldn't 
> say any word if all application had this concept but unfortunately 
> that isn't the case. So you better plan for a simpler GUI or if you 
> really have to, add one for the simpler minded users. Usability is 
> everything a user ever becomes familiar and comfortable with an 
> application.
>
> As I mentioned before cross-platform development is a necessity for 
> the success of the Linux desktop and usability is a necessity for the 
> success of applications. How both can be achieved can be seen in 
> wyoGuide (http://wyoguide.sf.net). I don't say it's the only way but 
> as my own experience proves it's by far the best. It is not the best 
> for everything but it's the best for a large part of the projects.
>
> O. Wyss
>




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