A usability overview of one of the larger open source software projects: the 2.6 version of the GNOME desktop and developer platform. We look at how well GNOME lives up to its challenge of being the desktop for the masses, including a lengthy survey of a group of new users and their reactions to the system. Read here...
Inspite of the known weaknesses of the Windows OS most people still use it both at house and at work. The main challenge of the GNOME project would be to provide the computer users with a lot of reasons to switch their OS. There is a section in the article which speaks about what GNOME does well, and they have mentioned the following points : 1) The Human Interface Guidelines 2) Simplicity 3) Look and Feel 4) Reliability Well, apart from reliability probably GNOME can't really claim of achieving any better than the latest Windows OS as of now. Moreover the new learning curve associated with changes is not very welcome for the more complacent of the users (which happens to be a substantial part !! ) I don't want to sound like advocating Windows OSs but then I feel GNOME has a long way to go to end the Windows monopoly. As for us, we will go for the better. Cheers, Amit Ray. The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents. (Nathaniel Borenstein)
