Computer for gradma and world domination

This entry was inspired by latest entry in LinuxToday, but refers to such topic as "Computers for gramma" or "Linux on a desktop" in general.

These topics have history now, and they've been "refurbished" at least once per few weeks. The major points of those are twofold (althouth highly interconnected). Those points are being:

1. Whether my {favorite non-technical member of the family} can easily use computer?
   
2. Is Linux ready for desktop?
   

Please allow me to explain, why those 2 are interconnected.

Well, the first one is well understood. In last 15 or so years, computers transformed from geaky toy to a "in any home" appliance. We do many of day to day tasks with it: We send and read our mail. We read, see and listen to a news. We listen to a music/radio. We watch movies (and sometimes TV). We record music, speech and TV. We play. We talk.

So, if my grandma can operate a TV/VCR, why can't she operate a computer system? Of course she can. In the matter of simplicity, I'll ask anyone who is familiar with computers, to perform the following tasks:

• Check/Send an email
  
• Read/check news on favorite website
  
• Listen to a music
  
• Watch a movie/DVD (all legal, don't worry)
  
• Write a simple document (such as you shop list)
  

I'd believe that anyone who's been using a computer for at least a month, would be able to perform all these tasks.

Now consider the following: the "Alex computer system" that I asked to perform those tasks on has nothing but pretty picture on the desktop, with the following icons:

• Mail
  
• Internet
  
• Documents
  
• Music/Movies
  

Wouldn't you agree, that using only common sense performing the aforementioned tasks would not be too hard? Say, Mail would present some pretty interface to email (or Gmail, Yahoo or anything else - all our email interfaces are alike and pretty self explanatory), Internet would fire up Firefox (or any other browser; and all our browser interfaces are alike and self explanatory), Music/Movies would start something like "media center" application (like Windows Media Center/Tivo/MythTv/Telly, or any other similar application) which is pretty straight forward to use and self explanatory, and Documents will start simple document editor, either local or browser-based (they do have similar interfaces anyway, except MS Office 2007, of course).

Now, I still believe, that no age-related neither intellectual issues have been discussed here yet. It is all very intuitive and common sense.

Just like the TV.

So, at this point, considering all I discussed before, could you answer the following question, please, :

Do you know which operating system "Alex computer system" runs? And more important, does it matter?

This is what I've been trying to explain. I sustain, that there's sincerely and absolutely no importance in which operating system powers the all-powerful "Alex computer system". This, as great result, leads me to the following:

For any such general-purpose computing, Linux-based OS (all you zealots, I know the difference between GNU/Linux and Linux, but I don't want to go into politics for a moment) is completely ready for massive desktop usage, as long as it can be installed and maintained in a way that makes sense to a general public.

Please, note the "common sense" part. I don't think that working with "Start" (or "applications" or whatever) menu is very intuitive (although I have to agree that "Applications" is much better than "Start"). To watch TV, one has to press an "on" and that's it. To play a movie on a VCR one presses "play". That's common sense. That's intuitive.

So here's my initial suggestion to all those aspiring to "prove" to everyone that Linux is ready. Create an application with the following features:

1. Create a very beautiful GUI with pre-defined tasks, such as those mentioned above.
   
2. Make sure it works as stable and as predictable as TV.
   
3. Make sure that interface is consistent thorough the applications.
   
4. Try it on your not so technical {member of your family} to see whether it is intuitive enough.
   

Until now, we've been preparing to world domination. Now the final part:

When they are asleep, swap the OS to Linux. Enjoy the fruits of your labour.

Heh, that would be fun and easy. Wouldn't it?

Technorati : technology

Novell vs. Microsoft, Gnome 1.x removal, cokehabit and stuff, 14-21 Nov 2006

Well, the day for weekly stuff.

There are few things are going on. Some of them Gentoo, some are not, so lets get started:

1. I would start with Novell-Microsoft deal. Albeit not news anymore, this one caused a lot of stirring in FOSS community. If you have missed the deal, then in a nutshell: Novell will pay ~40M $ to Microsoft, and Microsoft will pay something to Novell. What is it for we do not know, but it will allow Novell to claim idemnification for its clients from MS, and also MS already started telling that Novell pays for Microsofts' intellectual property used in Novell Linux products.
While intriguing where will this thing go, I really don't think its a good idea for any linux distro to pay for "intellectual property" which is possibly used in Linux based OS. And I agree on this with Red Hat's people, saying to Steve Ballmer, "show us the violating code, and it will be removed".
That's why, by the way, Jonathan Schwartz said all those things about OS importance. He just reacted to this deal....

2. Gnome 1.x removal caused more hateful fan-mails than even xmms procedure. Which is strange, especially because of xmms removal issue. I noticed plans to remove Gnome 1.x and friends couple of weeks before, and all that despite the fact that I occasionally visit forums. I mean, that somehow information did came to me, so I don't understand how people pissed by xmms removal do not pay attention to what is happening, and then complain again about Gnome. Thats childish and unfair, BUT I do understand their behavior.
   Besides giving notification, or in addition, some other kind of warning/notification system may need to be developed to announce such things. But people should also cool their spirits and try and understand both sides - understand developers why do they decide to retire packages (trust me, its not to screw you for fun), and understand users that do not enjoy dealing with removal problems.
3. Finally!! User representatives meeting had place last weekend, and it was very cool to catch up will all of them missing in action (yes, there was some timeout as it seemed). Loki99 suggested to have a long meeting in 3-days span, which came out really great. Some of the things that were discussed were CMS system for gentoo-userreps.org (which is not very operational at the moment), and also my ideas about userdays and video docs.
   I really like hanging around those guys, they are very cool. And I have an opportunity to learn a lot there.
   
4. cokehabit was demoted as userrep. I can't (and won't) get into the details why did it happened, enough emotions get around this one as it is. I hope that userrep project will still do great and that users and developers will benefit from it.

Thats all for now, more will be here as it comes :-)

Feedback is always appreciated