As one of the people responsible for it, I have to say that the idea that the DE would be a full 'OS' Real Soon was really brought on by enthusiastic evangelists, rather than management itself. Fleecy seems to have always wanted a good UI atop it (suggesting 'general purpose' product, vs. the fairly 'dedicated' runtime it currently sits as), but everyone at AInc. did speak clearly that they were:
1. Shooting for the portable/mobile market, and
2. Not planning on memory protection any time soon.
It's just that the evangelists really didn't want to listen to point 1 (after all, we always were a desktop platform, and if it can 'run anywhere,' why not?), and point 2 really sent everyone into a frenzy.
The fact that they *did* reorganize to sate the community does say something. As fate would have it, they might've done better trusting themselves, putting more resources into having something polished in time for the Zaurus placement, and less into herding the community...
...but you can't rewrite history, and they (and we) are stuck with the lot we've got. If it goes forward, hallelujah, and if it happens to fizzle completely... Well c'mon, if you saw Bill then, would you not have the decency to buy the man a drink, even if you reserve another to pour over his head? :pint:
