Hello from a new member,
I just subscribed myself as I am so curious about this interesting project that I discovered recently. I could not resit testing Haiku on a USB memory key. What I can say: well done, congratulations to your community!
I am glad to see that there is a common vision on this open source OS that aimed at avoiding where Linux distributions are failing: the desktop (even if some distributions are sexy with eye-candy stuffs à la MacOSX). The vision of Linux is more or less: "freedom" and "choice is good". To my point of view, too many choices kill the choice. And when you jump from one distribution to another, you feel lost ... learning again the basics to get your marks. If Haiku follows a common UI strategy like Windows or MacOSX, I am for it!
Now, I have a couple of concerns regarding open source softwares:
First, how do you plan to control and do some Quality Assurance to make sure that developers who port softwares will follow your guidelines? (like in your FAQ, same copy-paste shortcuts everywhere!)
Regarding the best open-source softwares, would it be better to have a new branch in charge of adapting the look and feel and ergonomics to Haiku? I guest it involves complexity as some applications have different approaches in the UI layer and use different UI framework.
Another approach: Actual open source softwares ported to Haiku are just a transition, new softwares will come only for Haiku later.
If this doesn't happen, I don't see what could motivate people to switch to Haiku instead of Linux, Windows or MacOSX. Gimp, OpenOffice, Evolution, etc .. will always be the same on any platform. Look at MS Office adaptation on MacOSX, a total different experience (that makes you enjoy MS for the first time).
What do you think?
L.
