OStatic

The GNOME Foundation executive director, Stormy Peters, recently wrote a bit about why the focus on the KDE versus GNOME debate is not the real issue. Many commenters on her post agree (while others actively demonstrate) that it is counterproductive.

Peters says the driving force behind both projects is what matters -- and that is to offer choices between free and proprietary desktop environments. The notion that one desktop environment will ever exist that suits every user is likely a myth. Peters proposes that the goal is to build ever stronger free alternatives, and if the projects compete, it is more along the lines of teammates competing for a Most Valuable Player title. She highlights that getting developers from different projects to talk is one of the driving reasons behind GUADEC and Akademy being held simultaneously this year, in the same location, and why they are hosted by the same organizers.

Could open source software benefit from more usability testing? It sure seems so, and usability labs are heavily emphasized at big proprietary software companies, especially Microsoft.ﾠ In fact, early interface standards in Windows applications, such as common menu options, were largely driven by the experiences of usability testers. Here are some open source projects that are setting a good example when it comes to usability.