He makes some interesting points, but the reason Linux desktops do anything like Windows does is because Windows does things like Apple does, which does things the way Xerox PARC research started in the 1970’s.

Does anyone think Apple or Microsoft stopped doing the research on usability? Microsoft has a massive research arm, which Linux UI devs indirectly utilize.

This isn’t random, nor a bad thing. Understanding UI improvement is good for everyone. Now if we can just stop the stupid “cool factor” dumbing everything down…