And yet, at the same time, it waves a warning flag. Once you begin to dig deeper into the various Linux distribution packages, you start to realize that Linux's vaunted flexibility is also an invitation to endless confusion. There are enormous differences in how the distributions are configured -- key files are located in different places, startup scripts perform operations in different orders, and there is a tremendous variation in the number of applications designed to work with different GUIs.

According to one software engineer with whom I struck up a correspondence on these issues, the endless flexibility presents major problems for GUI-based applications and configuration tools -- which depend on certain files being located in certain places and structured in certain ways.

"It is not practically possible to slap a GUI on top of a command line interface-based system and call it a day," says Eric O'Dell, the director of information services at the Gadget Guru. "If your computer is a bureaucracy, using GUIs to communicate with it is a bit like filling out forms to get some bureaucrat to perform a simple task. A command-line interface, on the other hand, is like being the bureaucrat's boss and just telling him what you want done. With a GUI, if there isn't a form ready to perform the task, it can't be done, period. With a command-line interface, no such limitation exists."

The problem, says O'Dell, is that there is a "strong tendency for configuration files to become hopelessly corrupted" if users try to use both GUI tools and command-line direct intervention at the same time.

"Either usability suffers or flexibility does," says O'Dell. "Since the hackers maintain the system, there is obviously a certain reluctance to cripple the system just to satisfy end users, who are not held in very high esteem anyway. Until some really clever hacker comes up with a way to get GUI-based parameters to peacefully coexist with scripts, there will be no real progress."

There may even be some regress. As the various distribution vendors seek to target different markets and solve end-user problems in different ways, the vendors are fragmenting the Linux market. The fragmentation will never be as severe as the splintering that has hamstrung Unix: As Linux advocates are quick to note, all the distributions use the same basic kernel at the operating system's heart, and the fact that all operating-system code is open-source and available for inspection means that it is much easier to solve incompatibility issues.

But there's an intermediate ground between the kernel and the graphical user interface where differences between distributions are exploding. KDE has its own batch of applications that work with KDE. GNOME has its own batch of apps that work with GNOME. Caldera's version of Linux, designed to work with KDE, is different from a Red Hat system running KDE. The endless configurability of Linux is a beloved boon for hackers only concerned with doing their own thing -- but for application developers seeking to reach out to an undifferentiated mainstream market, it must be a nightmare in the making.

Just think about the challenges in providing support -- supposedly a key revenue-generating business model for open-source entrepreneurs. To provide general support for Linux to end users, one would need to be an expert in not just one GUI, but at least two, and then in the intricacies of how those GUIs are configured on a host of different Linux distributions. It's no longer enough to go to a Usenet newsgroup, ask a quick question, and get an immediate answer; there are far too many variables.

The variables are a sign of Linux's strength -- its grass-roots approach to solving problems. But they are also an indicator of the central contradiction that will continue to plague Linux developers.

Says O'Dell, "It's easy to create powerful but hard-to-use tools, and it's easy to create easy-to-use but inflexible tools. It's really hard to make a tool that's both powerful and easy to use."

Such a goal is an immense challenge for all software manufacturers, not just the Linux hackers who are only now getting started on it. And who knows whether it's even possible? But that in itself is good reason to pay attention to the continuing development of a GUI for Linux. If the open-source community can crack this nut, what can't it do?
salon.com | May 11, 1999

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