[raganwald]

Actually, Stallman DOES have taste. He lacks a design aesthetic, but that is not synonymous with taste. Taste is about having an internally consistent means of making choices.

The reason people say Microsoft had no taste is that they never said no, they bolted any old thing onto the side of Windows, there never really has been a sense that Windows is this and this but not that.

Stallman has an extremel sharp sense of what free software is and isn't, I'd call that taste with a capital T. Now, if someone were to say it isn't GOOD taste, well, that's a worthwhile conversation to entertain.

Windows, on the other hand... No idea how it is today, but up to XT it absolutely lacked any sense of taste, it wasn't even bad taste, it simply was stuff higgledy piggledy, some things for experts who use the command line, some chrome for newbies, all next together, but never as powerful and flexible as Unix nor as easy as Macintosh, but not even designed for the middle of the road user.

In other words, no taste.

[orblivion]

I wasn't even talking about aesthetics. I was talking about the sort of taste it takes to say "no" to expressing your opinion in an entirely frank manner at certain times.

[raganwald]

Ah! I get that. +1! In my circle, that use of the word “taste” is almost always a negative, as in “Reg made a tasteless joke” but certainly it can be used positively, as in, “Reg’s commentary on admiring Steve but not deifying him was in good taste even if I don’t agree with it.”

I was mixed up by the comparison to Bill Gates, who I don’t see as being tasteless in speech but whose company I used to view as being tasteless in design.

But you are absolutely using the word appropriately, whether I agree or disagree with the proposition that Mr. Stallman’s commentary on Steve Jobs was tasteless.

[orblivion]

Yeah by invoking Microsoft I was expanding "taste" to a much more general meaning there, sorry for the confusion.