[ros-general] To Mike Nordell

[Mikko Tikkanen]

>  Alex Ionescu wrote:
> >  Mike Nordell wrote:
> > After exchanging words with them both on IRC now, my vote is for mf.
> >    
> In all fairness, you talked with Mikko for 5 minutes as he was preparing 
> to sleep ;) 
Indeed. Now, after few hours of sleep, I'm still hardly the sharpest
tool in a shed but at least my thoughts can run straight line...

I forgot to mention something.. Approachability.
Now I want you to think of regular user who uses his windows machine
at work for e-mail and Word -writings.. Now, give him two computers,
both have exactly same OS (say ROS) but with different approach for
GUI (one that looks like windows and another one which kinda looks
like windows but still looks like something else and somewhat acts
like windows)... Now, which one do you think he/she is going to go
for? To the windows look-alike. But why? Because it has higher
approachability.
I've seen this happen thousand times. People are afraid of anything
new and sometimes even refuse to learn anything new if it is
_absolutely_ necessary (i.e. if the old means are still usable even
though not nearly as efficent as the new ones). Even though I'd love
nothing more than to design fully new and revolutional concept for UI
it is simply not efficent in this case IF ReactOS aims to be "another
windows".
The reason why I am driving this "another windows" concept is that it
is basically the very mind and soul of ROS. The ultimate goal is to be
100% Windows compatible, but if the UI isn't Windows like the users
will see it not as "another windows" but as "another OS" which then
makes ROS to lose it's desired market value. (as windows compatible
OS) If the user can't clearly distinct the fact that it really is
"another windows" how can you expect him to realize that ROS really is
100% windows compatible AND you can run all your regular Windows
software on it? Put a tag line on the boot screen? Not going to work,
nor will the same line work on web-page, because regular users usually
won't change their working OS by downloading and burning another one
from internet but by observation. They will see someone else use it,
maybe even try it themselves, perhaps think that they are using
Windows but then realize that while they are doing everything they
needed to do they are doing it it completely new environment. Of
course to achieve this there has to be distinct clues that you are not
in your regular Windows but also it has to look like Windows at the
first glance.
If it does look like Windows regular users will expect it to work like
Windows (hence they can immediately start using it) and they will most
likely will expect to run the same software because it looks and feels
like Windows.


-mikko