Desktop Coolness

I am still trying to figure out what this means: "Available under the
GPL Licence and in exclusivity for Mandriva Linux, Metisse differs from
a classic 3D desktop ..."  Usually you don't see the terms "GPL"
and "exclusivity" in the same sentence. 



Anyway, Mandriva appears to be on the verge of some innovative ways of
using the computer workspace.

The story is here;
the videos are more informative than the static images. 

I haven't tried it, but anyone can try it by downloading and burning
the live CD.   The folks at Mandriva may be on to something
here.  They say it enforces work efficiency, which is a bit hard
to believe.  But I suspect that some of the ideas in Metisse will
turn out to be useful.  Since it does not rely on a 3D desktop, it
might be less resource-intensive than some of the other desktop
innovations that we've seen recently. 



As for the peculiar juxtaposition of the terms "GPL"
and "exclusivity", I suspect that what it means is that the source code
will be open, but the packaged, ready-to-go installation will be
exclusive to Mandriva.  Other distros could take the source code
and figure out for themselves how to integrate it into their
products. 



This probably will turn out to be like href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xgl">XGL, in that some people
will find it intuitive to use, and useful; others will think it is a
waste of CPU cycles, especially if it does not make intuitive sense to
them.