Of applications and documents

[David Adam Bordoley]

Stefan Urbanek requested that I forward this email from the linux step 
general list to you guys. 

Greetings, 

Let me introduce myself. My name is dave and I have been somewhat active in 
gnome over the last year or so, mostly with an interest in usability. I've 
lurked on this list for a while with some interest, and thought i might add 
some comments following some of the recent discussion about what 
applications should be included in linuxstep. 

My first instinct is to reply that linux step should include no applications 
at all. Of course I mean this figuratively. Instead i think linux step has a 
real opportunity to escape the traditional application metaphor and instead 
provide a documented oriented view of the user's system. 

In general what this means is that the ui will not expose the user to 
implementation detail of of applications at all. For instance instead of 
having an email client, the user would have a mailbox on there desktop whose
icon relays information to the user about the status of their mail (ie. 
whether there are unread emails, new emails etc.) The user need not be aware
that they are using an email program, they are simply manipulating their 
mail folder. 

This concept can further be expanded to other types of documents. Instead of
managing folders using a file manager, the user directly manipulates the 
folder (there is no proxy between the user and the folder. This is very 
similar to how the original macintosh finder worked until they broke it in 
osx). Of course I should add that ideally linuxstep would abandon or at 
least supplement the traditional unix filesystem with a database oriented 
search one (reiserfs may provide a solution here, although I'm not too 
familiar with the details). 

I claim no originality for these ideas (they've been around in some form for
at least the past 15 years, probably longer). I really hope linux step is 
able to deliver, it seems like a very promising project. 

dave