More to the point, your premise is that because you can use grid paper to measure OS GUI components, Windows stole from the Mac. You can do the grid test – a simple version is shown above – and see without question that Windows features are identical in Linux.

Any way you choose to spin it, by your own measure these Linux distributions use a copy of the Windows GUI. You presented the means to determine whether ‘GUI theft’ has occurred, and when a person follows the test you laid out, Linx looks just like Windows. And that’s the straight record.

I’m not even saying it’s a bad thing, but you’re very hung up on it. Why is it that you want to hold Linux to a lower standard than Windows in this regard? That really doesn’t say much for Linux in general, you know.

Linux developers are not copying anything from Windows, they are developing GUI features as requested by the users- that is, by consensus.

Many of those users are requesting Windows features (ie the taskbar and Start Menu, or, as you called it “application bar, and a menu button in the lower left hand corner”).

Thanks

There are stories floating about as to how Microsoft copied the GUI design of some application from a rival publisher. They set up a grid on the image of the app and had a graphics designer mimic every component. When you say things such as the above quote, it makes it sound as if you are implying that the Linux community is doing the same thing.

So while you may not mean it to come across like that, and are simply making an observation on the similarities of the GUI, you must remember that Linux development is a collaboration of the global community, one that takes its directives from the users. So a lot of users, the ones that influence the developers, feel that the GUI should consist of a desktop, an application bar, and a menu button in the lower left hand corner.

“If Linux is starting to borrow useability features from Windows, I might be able to use Linux.”

This statement does not make sense. Linux developers are not copying anything from Windows, they are developing GUI features as requested by the users- that is, by consensus. The fact is, “Usability Features” are richer and more advanced in Linux than anything in Windows (XP or Vista.)

I’ve been using Linux for a number of years, and I’m very happy to work in a stable, fast, and rich environment. The only time I have to boot Windows is for Quickbooks, and when I do, I thoroughly hate it: Everything is uglier and sluggish; psychologically I feel handicapped.

How much better is the Linux GUI usability over Windows’? Go to YouTube and search for “compiz”… Talk about WoW!

But this notion that Windows is heavily borrowed from Mac in the GUI department is what caused me to write this post. It seems like a lot of Linux distros are awfully keen on the parts of the Windows GUI that never found their way into a Mac. And not very interested in the Mac parts. Which flies in the face of the oft repeated “wisdom”.

I agree eye candy and bells and whistles are meaningless. But a user interface is anything but. Mac obfuscates things. The global menu bar, I just can’t get with that. Windows, for some of its faults, makes a clear distinction between different running programs. Not just in terms of process isolation, but to the people sitting at the keyboard.

Not that I’m complaining – this is good news. If Linux is starting to borrow useability features from Windows, I might be able to use Linux. The thing is, I don’t want a Mac experience – that’s why I don’t have one. (That, and they cost 2.5x as much for the same hardware.)

The internals of the operating system are an entirely different story, and well beyond the scope of this post. It’s not that it isn’t an interesting question, just a different one.