After that it was Konqueror with the different protocols like "wk:" in the address bar to search Wikipedia.
Then when I learned more, it just seemed like Qt was a much more capable foundation to build a desktop on, and I wanted to bet on the winner.
In the end KDE did win the desktop... because they built WebKit (as KHTML) and everything is now a webapp and the desktop is otherwise irrelevant.
When, why and how became this a good thing?
> When, why and how became this a good thing?
Cheap instant all-terrain deployment trumps most other considerations, especially where technical onboarding is on the critical path to customer acquisition.
While we're talking about "webapps", generally, and not SaaS specifically... the two often go so hand in hand that it is the exception to see a webapp that is not also a SaaS product.. and as a consumer I kind of mostly hate SaaS.
With the above two advantages noted, lets look at the cons:
- Companies can, and routinely do, push unwanted UX changes on me without my opt-in. Pre-SaaS you would wait for a new version to come out and could see what the reviews were saying before deciding if you like the changes and want the new features. Now you're a guinea pig and get the new "features" whether they are a benefit to you or not.
- Forces me to have my data on someone else's computer
- The "other peoples' computer" issue means that if there is a software or a hardware failure that prevents me from being able to do urgent work that it is entirely outside of my hands and my ability to troubleshoot the majority of the time (though this is a double edged sword since for the average non-technical user it can be a big benefit)
- Can't work without an active Internet connection (though I'll concede that not having an active connection is becoming pretty rare these days)
- If the company goes out of business, say goodbye to your data in the majority of cases
- Often goes hand in hand with renting the software rather than paying a flat fee for a perpetual license. Given the choice, I will always opt for a perpetual license. I try hard to have as few recurring payments in my budget as possible. Utility bills are bad enough.
If, however, by "webapp" we just mean a desktop application that uses a DOM-based rendering engine then I couldn't care less. There are tradeoffs, but they are purely technical and rarely impact UX directly in the way that a general approach to software delivery and consumption does.
I am glad Apple didn't do that and stayed native for nearly everything. This is a big selling point for me.
If you’re a small company, you can either build a web app which works everywhere; or you can deal with a distribution pushing out a buggy 3-year-old release against your will, with users harassing you about bugs.
Packaging on Linux for normal desktop apps was dead on arrival. It was never viable except for niche open source apps. The resistance to this fact makes the failure of the Linux desktop somewhat self-inflicted.
Why? Because that's what web devs are comfortable with.
How became this a good thing? When web apps became the easiest way to deploy cross platform.
There’s a reason KDE looks better, has better consistency across apps, does theming at the os level better etc. Html/javascript/css for your native app frontend is actually quite reasonable.
A modern classic absurdity: Linux enthusiasts who purchase MacBooks and use them to do all their computing in shitty web apps.
Realistically, many people will use registry hacks and other forms of piracy to get those updates for free, of course, just like people did with Windows 7. Only businesses or people afraid of viruses will pay, but that's probably enough for Microsoft.
I find it quite confusing to seemingly target people still unaware that Windows 10 is going out of support, but also list FTP/SSH/git/SVN integration as a feature. The people who use version control probably know what alternatives are or aren't available (even if they'd rather not need to find an alternative).
If they wanted to make the offer look good, I think they would've put out special offers with OneDrive storage and a year of extra security support for $5 per month rather than $2.50 a month for just updates.
For me, every one of the older machines in my household (laptops and desktops) that are currently on Windows 10 that cannot run Windows 11 in a fully supported manner will be migrated to a KDE based Linux distro.
ESU costs $30 for one year, $60 for two years. That's a lot cheaper than a new laptop.
I have friends and family that will continue to run EOL Windows 10 which is worse unless I convince them to migrate to Linux.
The situation with Windows 10 feels quite different, because most people I know that use Windows are on Windows 10 currently.
YMMV but this isn't a real option for a lot of people.
One cost me a 100 mile round trip to turn airplane mode off after I assume she'd accidentally whacked the mouse wheel button on the icon instead of the browser which for some completely unknown reason does that?!?!?!?! I'm not sure that was even what she did but I spent ages trying to work out how she could have even done that in the first place.
Gnome, on the other hand, provides a totally different UI, so user immediately identifies that it is different and needs to be learned a bit. But thanks to Gnome being pretty coherent and simple in how UI works, it usually takes very little time to learn and then they just keep using it. I experimented with my parents, father is 70, mother 65, and they both earned default Ubuntu very quickly and don’t have any issues using it, unlike win10+, which constantly raised questions and frustrations that something changed (MS likes to bring idiotic widgets to panels and menus after updates no matter that nobody asked for them).
I did just consider buying her a Mac Mini and be done with it. That seems, to this day, the most suitable solution.
For linux newbies, I'd actually suggest checking out Linux Mint with Cinnamon desktop. I used to run Mint a long time ago and recently installed it for someone trying to change from Windows. it was nice to see that they still provide a good, preconfigured UX. And no snaps. It's probably simpler than KDE but not too simple.
Maybe it's a case of [1], but I think Plasma is ready for the average desktop user. The other parts of the system may have some ways to go.
#2: End-of-updates isn't the security vulnerability large software vendors make it out to be, in the context of PC use. The paragraph below the first picture is FUD.
Other than Aurora Shell, but many people prefer to separate ChromeOS from other Linux Distros.
I actually don't mind the GNOME metaphor... but they make it less and less usable over each release. Philosophically, what they are talking about sounds great, but pragmatically the system is just getting less and less usable. UX consistency is good, but not when it comes at the expense of functionality. Also, I don't like that GNOME has been ideologically captured by the extreme left.
Back in the day I ran WindowMaker and FVWM, but nowadays, with Wayland, HiDPI screens and expectations of integration, it is not a viable strategy anymore.
