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67d34a1
(Get the code!)
GUI changes AFTER a product has released are always controversial. You'll get less complaints by building a whole new Window Manager than by changing a small usability item. Whatever gets released is pretty much what you're stuck with, unless you can keep making minor usability changes/tweak over a span of years so as not to rock the boat too much. (I've had experience with other UI projects at work, and a couple of buttons getting moved around sometimes result in nothing short of death threats.... People get REAL cranky about the interface of things after they've started using it.)
Most of us are used to the current window layout, and much of us have used it since the 80's. That's been a really big selling point of Ubuntu and OpenOffice is the lack of retraining for end users. Folks who were used to WindowsXP and Office 2003 could come over to Ubuntu and be productive nearly immediately. I tell folks that all the time, and they generally find it to be true, particularly the ones who were avoiding Vista and didn't want a Mac. The buttons on the right make sense. I know there is supposed to be something to take advantage of that space, but why can't it use all that "dead" space on the left instead?
I think to my wife and daughter, and both sets of our parents.... They all go NUTS when there is any UI changes at all and get lost very quickly when someone "moves their cheese" as it were. I admit the button placement disoriented me for a while, but like a trooper I went on for a week and until I could make a informed choice. One issue for me is that I go back and forth between MANY systems of varying OS's. They all have the buttons on the right, with the oddball exceptions of Lucid and Mac. As a result that does hit the productivity a bit, and I found I actually prefer the buttons where they are. Sometimes on a change like that I would find that it was more convenient.... But not this time. Change for change sake isn't good, ask MS about Vista...
However, this mini-debacle has raised a good point about the UI config, and I DO think it would be cool if users had an EASY way to make decisions for themselves on this. I mean that's one of the brilliant parts of Linux and OpenSource projects is the diversity of ideas. Let the Mac guys (and others who like it) have change to buttons on the left, while the rest of us keep our buttons on the right by default.