Desktop Metaphor

Tue Oct 23 05:29:39 CDT 2018

On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 18:58, Rick Bensene via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> Liam Proven wrote:
>
> <snip>
> >On the one hand, the cosmetics. *Every* Unix desktop out there draws
> >on Win95.
>
> I take exception to the "*Every*" in Liam's statement above.

I think you are missing my point so far that you're looking in the
opposite direction.

>  Replacing "Unix" with "Linux" would make the statement more correct.

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.

> X-Windows-based desktop metaphor UI's existed within the Unix world long before Win95 came on the scene.

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.

> The whole desktop metaphor UI existed long before Windows 95 in non-Unix implementations by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) with the pioneering Xerox Alto, introduced in 1973,  which implemented  Alan Kay's concepts for the desktop metaphor that were postulated in 1970 using Smalltalk as the core operating system.

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.

> Windows 95, and the earlier versions of Microsoft's desktop metaphor UI's, were patterned after these implementations.   Microsoft simply took concepts that already existed in the world of UI design, and made their own implementation based on those concepts.

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
from it (although MacOS was a very profoundly different OS.)

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
* Maté, 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_fail/

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
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