[cookiecaper]

How is KDE 4 a step toward Mac OS? I don't see that at all. KDE 4 also wanted to revolutionize the desktop, but I think we have accepted at this point that it isn't going to happen. KDE 4 is much more like Windows and KDE 3 than OS X.

[code_duck]

Of course KDE4 is like KDE4, but I don't see it as more similar to Windows than the Mac desktop. Mac OS doesn't revolutionize the desktop, either.

For KDE4, Lime Snow Leopard

1> You have a 'widget dashboard'

2> The preferences panel is very similar

3> KDE4 has a features identical to Expose

Probably more, too. All of the other features and ideas have been kicking around KDE/Gnome for years. Having a separate menu bar at the top, for instance - Gnome is set like that by default, which is more similar to Mac OS than the KDE style. Desktop 'Spaces' has been available on Linux for ages, too, while some people see that as feature unique to MacOS (though it's been added to Windows in various ways recently)

There is not really such a huge difference between Mac OS and Windows, even. It adds up to a lot, but as someone who has used scores of DEs and Window managers, they all share features, concepts and traits. They all use the same basic ideas - launcher icons, a desktop, a window tasklist, windows with menu bars, buttons and titles, etc.

I'd been using KDE4 for 6-9 months when I got my first Mac and all I'm saying is, well, I see where inspiration for certain features and design came from.

KDE and Gnome do have great ideas of their own, no doubt. They don't have $300 million worth of support to make KDE as polished as MacOS, though. I wish they did - the design of these DEs is just as good or better than the mainstream systems.

[cookiecaper]

I'll assume you meant of course KDE4 is like KDE3, but that's not what they were going for way back when they first announced the project and wanted everyone's ideas for how to innovate the desktop. They didn't really come up with anything.

Plasma might have been inspired by Dashboard, but it may not have been, and it definitely allows things that Dashboard doesn't.

Expose is part of almost all compositing window manager plugin sets of which I am aware. I don't know if OS X was the first to do this, but I don't think it's all too much of a stretch to suppose that it might be useful to see all the windows all at once occasionally.

Spaces is a non-starter; Linux DEs have had them for dozens of years, OS X 10.5 was the first appearance in OS X.

I agree that the preference panel is similar.

KDE 4 also has a huge taskbar and what is essentially a start menu. It uses a very conventional, Windows-like approach, and although it may have cribbed a few features from OS X too, Windows 95 is the dominant paradigm for a default KDE 4 installation.