What is "empowering" is getting stuff done. If KDE presents so much choice to a
particular user that he can't get stuff done, then KDE is crippling, not
empowering. If Gnome is "welded shut" in such a way that the user can't get get
stuff done, Gnome is crippling, not empowering. It depends on what the user
needs and how he thinks.

Right now, for me, Gnome is empowering. It gets out of my way and lets me do
what I want. It has what I call "a reasonable set of defaults" and any
inconsistencies it may have are not troublesome for me. After I'm completely
comfortable with Linux, I'll want to explore KDE and XFCE. When I get *really*
comfortable I'll try my hand at booting to Bash and using only text-based apps
and screen for a while, just so I can say I can do it. :)

It's easy for Linus to criticize Gnome for being too simple. He's the ultimate
"I want every option available" kind of guy. (If he were not, we wouldn't have
Linux in the first place.) What he's ignoring or discounting is that only about
40% of the population is "wired" that way in any given context, and that almost
everyone needs to keep it simple and procedure-oriented in the context of first
learning something.

One of the things I miss about OS/2's shell is that it was *both* simple to use
in its default state *and* almost infinitely configureable. I still wish IBM
would port the WorkPlace Shell to Linux.