Linux Special: Nice back end, shame about the interface

One of the biggest criticisms of Linux focuses on the lack of an elegant front end. While the techies love its strengths as a server platform, end users hardly jump for joy when they're confronted with a dog of an interface.

But there could be a solution on the horizon. Gnome - which stands for GNU Network Object Model Environment (see http://www.gnome.org ) - gives Linux a true GUI (graphical user interface), making it a viable alternative to Windows for the humble end user. Clive Longbottom, strategy consultant at CSL Consultancy Services, said: "It's the piece of technology that makes Linux pretty and user friendly."

However, Gnome isn't the only option - KDE being another much-touted alternative - and this could lead to a serious division in the Linux community. Longbottom likens it to the effect the Microsoft versus Sun debate has done to Java. "This is the one thing that can split the Linux community. There are about 20 different interfaces with differing front ends with different capabilities, and this stops corporate take-up. Corporates say that it's starting to look like the VHS versus BetaMax debate and if they back the wrong technology then it will lead them down a black alley."

Currently Caldera, Red Hat and Corel offer products based on either Gnome or KDE. This provides three centres of gravity, but as Longbottom points out, the divisions shouldn't be over-played. "These are just front ends. It's not as though Gnome runs applications that KDE doesn't. They both run on the Linux kernel."

However, Simon Earthrawl, head of the UK Unix User Group, claims it's not just the technology itself that will influence the future of the Linux desktop - it's the way the products are licensed. "I think it is all to do with the copyright license. The GNU General Public License is different in scope [to the KDE open source license] and doesn't have the feeling of open source, as once you're infested with the license you cannot change a bit of code and have to give away the source code, like with Gnome.

"But if you use products with the open source license, such as KDE, you can make commercial value-adds and then sell it. It's a better business case to get corporates to use it," he added.

However, it's not what you've got that counts, but how you use it, according to Mike Blake, data marketing consultant, software business division at IBM. "The interface with the code on the system is irrelevant. A lot of people are being evangelistic about the front end, but we see more response from users about the server. The religious war on the front end is interesting, but it's not something we're leading."

But interface uncertainty isn't the only factor making businesses nervous about using Linux on the desktop. As one Silicon.com reader put it: "On the desktop, it's got a long way to go - the applications aren't there yet, the skills are in short supply and many a corporate manager is concerned about the absence of a last-stop company finally responsible for sorting out a problem if it goes wrong. However, with KDE at the present and Gnome in the future, and a rising tide of development tools to easily create new applications, this could change."

This is a view unsurprisingly shared by Gnome creator, Miguel de Icaza. "The basic idea is to provide a free system and set of applications for users to use easily," he told Silicon.com. "The first major release is a spreadsheet and this will be followed by presentation and word processing applications. These are useable but not finished and we recognise that we still have many things to do. In the next few months we are releasing a rapid application development tool. It takes time."

So far, the Linux phenomenon has been largely user-led - a rarity in the industry. If that continues, the current arguments over the front end may be short-lived. If you listen to IBM's Blake, the vendors themselves are adopting a wait-and-see policy: "We didn't get into Linux because we think it's a good thing but because our customers wanted it as a server operating system."

Whether that's genuine altruism, or a sign that no one's worked out how to make money out of Linux yet, is a moot point. But the interfaces are maturing, and Linux on the server is becoming well established. If the major vendors get involved in support and services, the applications appear and the voice of the user community remains paramount, Linux will become a heavyweight contender on the desktop.

However, 'if' is a very big word in information technology.