Desktop Metaphor

On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 18:58, Rick Bensene via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: I think you are missing my point so far that you're looking in the opposite direction. How many graphical Unix desktops are sold or distributed in the world today that are not Linux? Excluding Mac OS X as I specifically address that point, I think. I can think of _one_ modern desktop that isn't a Linux one -- the Lumina desktop of TrueOS (i.e. FreeBSD.) Guess what -- it's a Win95 clone. That is _precisely my point_. There are _dozens_ of counter-examples, that is, non-Windows-like desktops from before Win95, and _none_ has any measurable modern impact today. Apart from Mac OS X going its own way, basically every other desktop still in active development or still being distributed today is Win95-like. Exceptions: Budgie, GNOME 3, Elementary OS' Pantheon -- all broadly Mac OS X-like. I would also note that Budgie and Pantheon are both derivatives of GNOME 3, as was the now-effectively-dead Ubuntu Unity. That, again, *was the point I was trying to make*. We used to have a ton of prior art and alternative designs, and today, they have all gone, with basically no impact. Whereas this is at its reductio-ad-absurdam core true, it misses the point. If you strip this down to a comparison of the elements that all desktops have in common, then there's nothing left to compare. Yes, it all came out of Xerox... although of course Xerox learned from Englebart, Sketchpad, etc. But what matters are the _differences_. Apple has created 3 main desktop UIs (setting aside the Newton, iPod, iOS etc.) * Lisa OS * classic MacOS (note, no space) * Mac OS X (note, space), now styled macOS (note capitalisation). Lisa OS went nowhere much, but the Mac is clearly strongly derived Lisa OS and MacOS both contained numerous innovations which nobody had done before. From memory -- I welcome correction... * a global menu bar in a fixed location * standardised menu entries, with strict rules for naming them (e.g. File/Edit/View/etc, restriction to single words only) * standardised dialog boxes, with standardised names, in a standardised order (trivial example: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Do_It.txt ) * standarised window decorations in fixed positions * fixed restricted meanings for desktop icons, which were themselves limited in function) * menus shared between apps (e.g. the Apple menu) Apple took the somewhat nebulous ideas of Xerox PARC -- of a system for programmers, with Smalltalk visible and so on -- cut them down to something implementable and standardised and controlled them until they were much easier and simpler. It discarded stuff Jobs and his lieutenants didn't get. No Smalltalk, no interpreter or programming exposed to the user, no built-in networking or network functionality. It cut it down to compiled apps with distinct functionality and a strictly controlled unified UI, running cooperatively in a single shared desktop UI. Compare to the early Alto and its kind: UI was wildly varied, might be textual, might not, and there was no uniformity between apps. But the Lisa with its "templates" and multitasking and so on was too complex and too expensive. So this was cut-down even further to the Mac. Much of what we take for granted in UIs today comes either direct from the Mac, or from systems designed soon after the Mac which were either consciously aping it, or were avoiding it and inventing non-Mac-like ways to do things so as to avoid Apple lawsuits. DR GEM put drive icons on the desktop. Apple sued. DR removed them (from the PC version). Microsoft, fighting shy, had no drive icons. Windows 1/2/3 had an empty desktop unless you first opened and then minimised some windows. Win95 came up with "my computer", an entirely virtual folder, and in there were the drive icons -- so it did not infringe Apple's patents. As it happens it thus recreated the non-infringing method DR had invented, but made it more rigorous. You can itemise a list of the elements of a Mac-like desktop: * global menu bar * drive icons on the desktop * trashcan on the desktop * single iconic spatial filer * filer windows are flat and contain only a grid of icons for their contents * to get at subfolders, a new window is opened by double-clicking on a folder icon in a parent window * standardised dialog boxes, which are modal and forcibly constrain interaction to simple choices ... etc. DR GEM copied this (and got sued, but it didn't affect ST GEM), but tweaked it: menu bar entries are drop-down not pull down -- you mouse over them, they pop open on their own, without a click. This wasn't enough and it got sued. Amiga OS copied this but tweaked it: the menu bar only appears when you right-click at the top of the screen. Somehow this was enough. Microsoft, leery of litigation, avoided copying it and pointedly did things differently: * no desktop icons * filer was list-oriented, fixed 2 pane design * menu bars were inside app windows, and to hell with Fitt's Law * window controls were rearranged Just 3-4 years after the Mac, rather than the year or 2 that the ST and Amiga came out, later companies also carefully heeded the Apple example, because of the DR lawsuit, and pointedly did things differently. * NeXT carefully avoided it in NeXTstep. * Acorn also avoided it in RISC OS. This stuff isn't coincidence. These things didn't just happen. Now, look at the UIs that appeared _after_ the Mac. * all have strict interface guidelines * all have standardised menu bars in standardised places with standardised entries * all have standardised dialog boxes with standardised buttons in standardised places * all have their own fixed filer design, usually non-iconic This stuff matters. The signs and trends are there and very clear. But almost nobody looks at it, they just mouth empty platitudes like "MS stole from Apple but Apple stole it from Xerox anyway". That's not really true, it neglects a _ton_ of important, incremental work. But that stuff all gets dismissed. Now back to your argument. Consider a few of the post-Mac but pre-Win95 desktops. That means the mid to end 1980s and early 1990s. * HP VUE * Open Group CDE -- now FOSS, which I've written about: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/09/cde_goes_opensource/ * Sun OPEN LOOK & SunView * IRIX Indigo Magic / Interactive Desktop * HP NewWave * Xerox ViewPoint / GlobalView * as previously mentioned, NeXTstep and Acorn Risc OS (You see, I have been paying attention, for, oh, 35 years or so now.) Now, I can point to 3 living (FSVO "living") descendants of those OSes: * CDE is now FOSS (It had a conceptual re-implementation, the XForms Common Environment, XFCE. Here's a screenshot: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Xfce3.jpg Note, it has now moved to a Windows-like model) AFAIK no current or historical full-function general-purpose Linux offers CDE as a desktop choice. * NeXTstep inspired GNUstep http://www.gnustep.org/ (and LiteStep but that's now dead) No current or historical full-function general-purpose Linux offers GNUstep as a desktop choice. * Risc OS inspired the ROX Desktop: http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/ Again, no current or historical full-function general-purpose Linux offers ROX as a desktop choice. That's it. I am aware of some now-dead historical ones. I believe there was a Mac-like Linux desktop called, I think, Sparta, but it's so long-dead I can't Google up any trace of it. There was AmiWM, an AmigaOS-like window manager, but it's not a full desktop. There are MorphOS and AROS but they're relatively obscure and are separate OSes. There _was_ an attempt to reproduce the IRIX Magic desktop but it never got anywhere and is AFAIK now dead: http://5dwm.org/ BeOS used the Windows model. OS/2 Warp made the WPS more CDE-like with a launcher, but Warp 4 made that Win95-like. So, current active FOSS desktop environments. * KDE -- Win9x model * Trinity, fork of KDE 3 -- Win9x model * Cinnamon, fork of GNOME 3 -- Win9x model * Xfce -- Win9x model * LXDE -- Win9x model * LXQt -- Qt-based continuation of LXDE; Win9x model * Mat?, fork of GNOME 2 -- Win9x model * Enlightenment -- Win9x model * Moksha, fork of E17 -- Win9x model Let's be generous and look at a few simple window managers! * IceWM, fallback option in SUSE: Win9x model * Fvwm95, as used in RH when I first got into Linux -- Win9x model FreeBSD! Let's not limit ourselves to Linux! * Lumina -- Win9x model Let's broaden it past Unix. * BeOS (& Zeta) and Haiku -- Win9x model Or let's look beyond FOSS! * QNX Neutrino Photon -- Win9x model Are you starting to see what I mean now? I would also add that GNOME 2 followed the Win9x model, and only changed after Microsoft threatened to sue. I have examined this in some depth here: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/03/thank_microsoft_for_linux_desktop_… Outside of Apple, I think it is fair to say that no new OS or desktop environment since 1995 has used anything other than the Win95 model. The fact that there are a small handful of clones of the Apple Mac OS X GUI doesn't really invalidate this point. A couple of FOSS copies of proprietary 1980s OSes attempt to re-create pre-Win95 desktops. Every pre-Win95 Unix desktop _or FOSS clone thereof_ is dead or as good as dead, with few active commits and no distributions offering it as a desktop choice. Don't get me wrong. I do not think this is a good thing. I think this is _tragic_ and wish to reverse that trend. There used to be, as you say, wide diversity in OS and desktop design. Now it has all gone. Win95 swept all before it, and unless you are about half a century old, you have probably never seen a desktop that isn't Win95-like unless it's Apple or a copy of Apple. -- Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053