"Dimitrie O. Paun" dimi@intelliware.ca writes:
What you get: -- Linux apps using their toolkit of choice. None of the silliness we have now where you have to choose one or the other almost like they are different platforms (there is hope with BlueCurve) -- Iteroperability across the board, including _native_ Windows apps! -- a LOT of good apps, free and comercial. Look at SF which are the most popular apps. Windows apps! -- a lot less duplication of efforts, etc, etc.
Yes, there are problems, it will not be 100% pretty, but what is? In fact, all things too pretty tend to fail (I think Python is a lot prettier than Perl, but Perl is doing so much better).
Apart from the obvious technical problems with that, and the overall ugliness of the result, the major drawback is that you are essentially putting Microsoft in control of the direction of the Unix desktop.
The Windows API is not something we have freedom to change, and that is a very problematic restriction. Even if most desktop environments today are quite similar to Windows, I hope we can move beyond that someday, and leave Microsoft in the dust. This can't happen if we let them define the core APIs.