Microsoft explains why you can't move Windows 11 Taskbar

Re:Microsoft explains why you can't move Windows 11 Taskbar by phendrenad2 on Tuesday April 12, 2022 @03:14AM (#30999597)

It's not a snipe. To be a "tastemaker" your taste eventually has to become mainstream. You say it yourself, Windows is a consumerist/default system. It rarely changes, and when it does, the users hate it. What has Windows taken from Linux? Certainly not the pages upon pages of black+neon tiling window managers of /r/unixporn. That's the part of the community concerned with customization. The rest just use stock KDE or GNOME. How is that different from Windows?

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Re:Microsoft explains why you can't move Windows 11 Taskbar by rektide on Tuesday April 12, 2022 @01:13PM (#31005485)

PowerTools is a huge rip off of things Linux users have been doing for decades; tiling &c. Virtual desktops in Windows 10 is another rip off. Mouse Without Borders catching up to long cherished Synergy/Barrier. Good for Microsoft! Catch up! WSL again gave the tastemakers/demanding folk that which they demanded.

I don't think most users could cite what changed between Windows versions. 7->8->10->11.... it's been such a wash. But Linux users see a lot of little things they expected, now semi available.

Microsoft is definitely stealing from the best, and the best ideas are clearly originating on Linux & in open-source.

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Re:Microsoft explains why you can't move Windows 11 Taskbar by phendrenad2 on Tuesday April 12, 2022 @02:50PM (#31006802)

Virtual desktops have been in Linux/Unix since 1984 or so. Why steal them now? Obviously there's more to the story than "Linux tastemakers made it trendy". Also many of the things you mention (such as cross-device mouse movement) actually started out as commercial products, on Mac, before going to Linux. So to say they were stolen from Linux is just ignoring their history. "Microsoft stole Xyz" is a sure-fire way to get clicks in the Linux/Mac community, but you need to take those stories with a healthy dose of skepticism.

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Re:Microsoft explains why you can't move Windows 11 Taskbar by rektide on Tuesday April 12, 2022 @04:29PM (#31007865)

None of these defenses work for me. I 100% see Microsoft chasing the puck of the good, engaged, active user communities- the ones from other platforms. That Linux has been doing it for a long time & Microsoft is only just catching up doesnt change the reality, just shows how bad MS is at adapting to & trying to do more. There's little enough demand to push further, get better there!

I cant find any evidence of a predecessor to Synergy on Mac. Synergy was launched in May 2001, initially for for X11.

Good ideas always happen elsewhere. GUIs getting ripped off of of Xerox is no surprise. Overall there is, I'd claim, extremely little genuine innovation in UIs. GNOME seems to be one of the few out there willing to keep re-beginning, doing radical refreshes, but it's still not like boldly vastly different than other things. But Linux users, with their libre attitudes, are out there exploring & finding what is possible & what makes sense, across dozens of window mamagers & thousands of add-on components & endless exploring/reconfiguring... not just consuming. Of course MS is watching & borrowing the emerging stuff.

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