Linus, GNOME 3, and Much Ado About Desktop Interfaces

"The world of IT is a better place when developers respect users instead of trying to enslave them," said blogger Robert Pogson. "We need new user interfaces for new gadgets with tiny screens and no keyboards and no mice, but there's absolutely no reason to radically change a user interface that has been used satisfactorily for decades."

If ever there was a week to make a person believe in the cosmic forces of fate, this might be it.

To wit: Linus Torvalds -- always a topic of interest here in the Linux blogosphere -- has been a particularly "hot topic" in recent weeks thanks to his critical comments earlier this month about GNOME 3.

Quick snapshot: "The whole gnome3 approach of 'by default we don't give you even the most basic tools to fix things, but you can hack around things with unofficial extensions' seems to be a total UX failure," he wrote in a post on Google+.

The 2012 Millennium Technology Prize

Them's strong words, there's no denying, so it came as no great surprise to see TuxRadar launch one of its ever-thought-provoking Open Ballots a few days later. Entitled, "What does Torvalds know about interface design?" the TuxRadar post invites readers to sound off on how seriously Torvalds' views should be taken on the topic.

Torvalds has also been in the headlines lately, meanwhile, for expounding his views on another highly controversial topic: UEFI and secure boot in Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows 8.

Now, fast-forward just a few days and there's the news that Torvalds has officially been declared a joint winner of the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize.
Welcome to June, the month of all-Torvalds, all the time!

In the Eye of the Beholder?

Of course, well-deserved as all the attention over Torvalds may be this month, it doesn't really help resolve the interface question.

Is GNOME 3 a mess universally? Or does a desktop's beauty lie in the eye of the beholder? And should it really matter what Linus thinks, Millennium Prize or no?

These are the questions on Linux bloggers' minds.

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