IBM to Linux: Stop copying Windows!

[Kintaro]

IBM, whose decision to back Linux years ago was a driving force in its adoption by business, called on developers of the open-source operating system to make it more "green" and to stop copying Windows, if they want to see Linux on the desktop.

Bob Sutor, VP of open source and standards at IBM, told attendees of the LinuxWorld Conference in San Francisco, that what the open source community needs to make Linux popular as a desktop OS used by consumers and businesses are "some really good graphic designers."

Stop copying 2001 Windows. That's not where the usability action is," Sutor said during his afternoon keynote.

Sutor's comments came a day after IBM announced at the show that it was joining Linux distributors Canonical, Novell, and Red Hat in building Microsoft-free PCs for business. The four companies agreed to provide hardware partners with the software to build desktops that would have alternatives to Windows and Office.

MOAR

[worker201]

Didn't read the article, but I would like to point out a fundamental flaw in the reasoning in this quote.  Graphic designers and usability engineers are not the same thing.  Graphic designers are only interested in what is pleasing to the eye.  Usability engineers are more interested in how the eye and the hand coordinate to complete a task.  It's unclear whether IBM is accusing Linux developers of copying Microsoft's visual style (which, after being on a Mac, is shockingly unbearable), or copying Microsoft's interface style (which is for the most part the PARC-foundation stuff - buttons, dropdowns, dialogs, etc).

And, I've maintained since it was first leaked that KDE4 looks more like OSX than anything else.

[Kintaro]

I think it is more about making Linux too damn stupid in general.

"Create a machine any fool could use and only a fool would want to use it."

[Lord C]

"Create a machine any fool could use and only a fool would want to use it."

So what are you saying about Macs?

[Calum]

sounds like he's saying linux should continue to aim for the geek market instead of the "desktop" (or "windoid") market. i actually disagree, i think it should forge ahead instead of copying. But i've been using XFce for years, so i don't get all this copying shit that GNOME and KDE users have to put up with. Perhaps a well configured XFce should be the default desktop for some of these big bloaty linuxes. I never figured out why they're *all* so GNOME/KDE dependent.

By the way, what's this a picture of? -