Prepare for server failure 
Too bad that so many people are giving such a negative response to this.
M$ is finally starting to come forward, and merge better with Open source applications, and all the community can do is vent pessimism.
Without M$ we would not have visual studio, which is what they use to make the fastest blender builds on windows. Man, what if they made it so it was even faster?
Not like they are trying to force OOXML on blender, sounds like they really want to help out.
And Emperor Palpatine really wanted to help the young Jedi
My Grandma, what big eyes you haveā¦
I love how the responses on slashdot immediately get in to trashing the blender interface. Its like thereās folks out there just searching for when blender gets mentioned on a public forum so they can jump in and diss the GUI. I had to scroll 1/3 of the way down the page before the comments even referred to the M$ letter.
yea lol!
We need more blender users to jump in on the conversation, most of the people posting really dont know anything about blender except that they did not understand it when they opened blender for the first time.
āOMG! it has a diffrent GUI than OutlookExpress, and Notepad! it must be trash!!, I ā¦CANTā¦gaspā¦ LEARN ANYTHING NEWā
"āBlenderās interface is actually quite intuitiveā ā¦ that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
hereās the thing:
If you canāt figure out what stuff does without a video tutorial, then it is by definition not intuitive.
Iāve used 3D application since the late 80ās (started with Sculpt-Animate 4D, and have used many applications since), and Blenderās interface is one of the worst Iāve ever seen. Iād say itās worse than ever Caligari (the first version) in that at least with Caligari I could actually navigate.
I tried learning Blender recently, and downloaded a video tutorial. The guy presenting it repeatedly used the word āintuitiveā - even going so far as to say something like this:
āThe buttons donāt work the way youād expect, but once you get used to it, itās really intuitive.ā
If you donāt get how hilarious this is, then you donāt know the meaning of the word āintuitiveā."
okayyy buddy
New people need to learn how to use any application.
A newbie cannot just sit there and absorb the information, you need to actually read the manuals, and follow more tutorials.
If you have failed at one tutorial, dont give up, try another.
How can anyone give a review of a product they donāt even know how to use? Totally unfair. Why cant people actually learn how to use it , before they judge it?
Butābutā¦I know Kung Fu! 
interfaces such as mouse and keyboard are intuitive, apps user interfaces such as photoshop, maya, blender, 3ds max, truespace, etc. are not.
a really intuitive interface would be a brain waves reader of some sort, but that again infact would go under interfacing devises, such as mouse and keyboard are.
The thing you need most when learning the Blender interface: pure time 
by the way, Iāve read a little bit of that whole ooxml thingā¦ Anywaysā¦ I think it would be great if micro$oft would just donate money to the blender foundation, offer a few suggestions , then leave - rather than, āworkā with blender - partnerships donāt always bode that well with microsoft.
okay, my 2 cents 
that was a quote from the site - idk if you caught that or not
but i completely agree with you Felix
Ha, I have noticed the overuse of intuitive with many apps and whatnot, but especially Blender. Its kind of a way to say " We dont work like anybody else, but trust us, its a good thing."
I love the way blender works(and have gotten extremely fast with it), but intuitive? Nah. I dont really find many interfaces intuitive. Like has been mentioned, itnuitive conjures images of apps that practically run themselvesā¦
And Ive yet to see one of those.
However, yeah, it is pretty sad how many folks seem to walk around waiting to rip on Blender.
Yea, I caught it too 
, new users that hate the interface usually dont ever get close to your 200+ post count
Oh, and another thing I noticed: Most of the folks complaining about this very vague proposal from MS? Linux users. Big shocker there. I wondered why everything was sounding so crazy and fanatical.
I really dont find it likely that the Blender devs are going to sell out and hand Blender over to MS or something, folks need to chill. The devs know how much open source means to people, they know how much cross-platform compatability means, so jeez, get over yourselves!
Its not like Blender is suddenly gonna become Windows-only and all the 'nix users will be left in the cold
[sarcasm](tho dreams do come trueā¦).[/sarcasm]
Ha, this dude is a little defensive:
Itās crap, s/he found letter from ballmer, and then published it with snide remarks every few lines. Quite frankly it adds nothing to the arguement against windows. This really does give a really poor show of the people in the open source community, itās poorly thought out and no different from the knee jerk reaction against anything microsoft.
Blender got an e-mail from MS, how about we hear something from blender or MS, not some anonymous blogger
He titled his response " Dont read the Article". Hes got a point about the open-source religious maniacs, but I like how he jumps so fast to call it a lieā¦
Oh, and another thing I noticed: Most of the folks complaining about this very vague proposal from MS? Linux users. Big shocker there.
Yea, they need to boot back to windows more often, and play some games or something, they seem way too edgy.
Haha x). Heres another great reply thats among the most level-headed, insightful, and civil responses Ive seen:
MS normally reaches out to developers through the paid developer channels. As a result, OSS developers were ignored by Microsoft. Microsoft creates a new position to reach out to them, and contacts them saying, āHow can we help? Is there a file format problem? Weāre working on making our file formats more open, is there something that we can speed up that would help,ā and you all make snide remarks.
If file formats are not a problem, than a simple, āWeāre fine for now, but when the issue comes up, I will pass your contact information on to developer with trouble, hereās my vCard, letās keep in touch,ā would be fine.
Microsoft isnāt passing any judgment here. Windows competes with Linux in the marketplace, Blender is an application that runs on Windows and Linux, the company that makes Windows reaches out offering to help because they want Blender to run really well on Windows.
Itās not about Microsoft WANTING the software for free, the Blender guys GIVE the software away for free, to Microsoft and everyone else. This is simply Microsoft realizing that their competition with Linux and other Open Source PROJECTS doesnāt mean that other applications should be supported as well as other third party developers. Iām sure that Microsoft gives Adobe support because they want Adobe products to run as well or better on Windows as Mac OS X, now they are offering support to Blender.
The Blender guys may not need/want that support, but this is Microsoft āgetting it,ā and Slashdot users NOT āgetting it.ā The software marketplace is not proprietary vs. open source, itās not non-Free vs. free, itās product area by product area. I find it unlikely that Microsoft would offer support to the Open Office guys, because OO running better on Windows hurts their market leading Microsoft Office product, but other areas that Microsoft doesnāt compete in, they can offer them support.
I would expect MS to be willing to support The Gimp writers as that program gets better, because Microsoft is indifferent between users running Windows/Photoshop and Windows/Gimp, and would like EITHER scenario better than OSX/Photoshop, OSX/Gimp, or Linux/Gimp.
I think thats very plainly what it is. Microsoft is still a company, and its going to make moves as such. Despite the accusations of ulterior motives, I think this guy is probably the most accurate.
Most thoughful Iād agree.
Yeah, that bit made me laugh, tooā¦ Tonās not exactly some āanonymous bloggerā at the BF. 
Whackos.
I have to side on the side of the anti-M$ crowd on this one. They have an agenda. Theyāve proven so time and again throughout their history. They make little effort to hide this fact. The idea that theyāre āslowly shifting toward a more open standards based approach to its file formatsā is pure BS, as anyone familiar with OOXML can attest. The very fact that they, and every commercial software producer, keeps their file formats tightly closed (and changed with every version released) in order to keep users locked in is proof of that. Theyāre out to make money by leveraging their assets. This is what companies do in capitalism. The OSS business model operates differently, and any collaboration between the two must be approached like any minefieldā¦ very carefully.
that was directed at the grocklaw(or what ever) article author.