[ros-general] To Mike Nordell

[Robert Köpferl]

You already know it:

Another windows is compatible exactly then, if The windows are painted 
the same way and Arial looks the same and the mouse cursor uses the same 
.ani-file :-D

We all know that :-/ . Who cares about APIs - the're useless

Mikko Tikkanen wrote:
>>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
> 
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