The XPde Team released XPde 0.3.0, a major upgrade to the XPde desktop environment and window manager. Check out the announcement, view the screenshots or read the detailed ChangeLog. Go to the downloads section to get the binaries and sources. Read more for a quick commentary.Our Take: While the guy does what he does just for fun, I believe he is on to something. As JoelOnSoftware.com also preaches, when you want users to switch from a mainstream product to an alternative solution, each difference you have from the original drives away half of your potential users. Ten differences mean that 99,9% of the users will stay with the original.
After the usability, behavior, shortcuts, look and feel etc. can be made identical to Windows, all it remains is having WINE to run well along the rest of native Linux apps (QT and GTK+ applications with a widget theme that resembles the native XPde). Now, that's what I would truly call a... "Lindows". It is a neat idea for market penetration (note that the "cloning" factor is made on purpose).
