Now, try again, this time with something like KDE 4. So what would be the point of an adjustable clock, well everything can be adjusted, so once more widgets are put out you can tune them to work for you, Anything can be adjusted, added to your panel and themed to your liking. This are just the base sets of things you can place on your desktop, lets say you have 4-5 powerpoints that your working on, put this folderview app right here, shrink it down and point to this location. You can now work on all you powerpoints and when your done, get rid of the app or switch it to a different folder. KDE is a change, it’s some users want, good eyecandy, good productivity and it’s fun. They see a reason to switch over to Linux. I agree, adding new features every 6 months is asking for trouble. But 4.1 is going to be a stable release for the rest of the KDE4 series. Hence why so much had to get done. KDE4 is getting the new users, and I feel that if Gnome doesn’t come out with something that can mature into a really great feature, the new install base is going to leave.

“Can be used to write letters and read the news” isn’t that much of a draw, they can do that on their Windows desktop, and even if they can write letters and read the news in a better or easier way using a Gnome desktop than they can do that on the system they have, it’s really hard to make that clear to them without them trying it out for themselves.

(Praying HTML markup works)

Btw. regarding Compiz: IMHO the toy plugins are nice but can be annoying soon; but some features like virtual-desktop-sliding, window shadows, and smooth minimize animations really improve the desktop, even for “normal” working users. It’s much more than just a toy then.

as I see it there are 2 sides to this call for evolution 1) make everything integrated and “just work” and 2) bring the desktop to life

1) is the non-pretty underside and although some integration is possible through DBUS and components like telepathy exist. Using these interactions has been extremely slow on the uptake. People interaction is the most important part of this and is why i mention telepathy. Understandably this isn’t mature yet, but why aren’t we fiddling with inclusion to work out the bugs as its developed?
Examples:
- Although I can enter my contacts AIM name into Evolution theres no way to actually IM them from there and if i receive an IM from someone and want to save them as a contact or add to an existing contact, theres no fast easy way to do that.
- smart drag-n-drop – should be easier for applications to add this and all gtk+ widgets should be supported (which i understand is a constant headache for application developers)

2) There are a lot of dumb effects out there in the compiz world don’t get me wrong. But adding fluidity and dynamicism to the desktop does not have to be useless. On the contrary, making things react in ways that the human brain is more accustomed actually increases work flow. OSX has been doing this extensibly… ex: simple fades and transitions that visually let the user know whats happening or what they just chose and sometimes how to get back.

This is the type of visuals GNOME is capable of harnessing correctly to enhance the user experience by making GNOME more fluid and a more productive environment. Let the Aquariums and spinning windows stay with the people playing at compiz-fusion.