Shared keybindings

[Claes at work]

There is a long thread at lwn.net about keybinding conflicts:
http://lwn.net/Articles/147467/. One issue that is mentioned is that
traditional unix keybindings conflict with keybindings with
Windows heritage.

Mac OS X has solved this issue well by using the Command key instead of 
the Control key. So to copy you press Command-C rather than Control-C. 
This way there is no conflict. (Well perhaps Mac never had the problem to 
begin with but nonetheless this conflict does not exist on Mac).

On PC keyboards the Win key sits in about the same position as the Command
key does on Mac keyboards.

There is a wiki page on shared keybindings here:
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards_2fdefault_2dkeys_2dspec. It refers to 
a spreadsheet with Gnome/KDE/Mozilla/OpenOffice keybindings listed:
http://people.mandrakesoft.com/~fcrozat/shortcuts/shortcuts2.gnumeric.
This link is broken,
but http://people.mandriva.com/~fcrozat/shortcuts/shortcuts2.gnumeric works.

Is it realistic to imagine a migration to something similar for the
major toolkits
and desktop environments in the Linux universe? 
I am thinking LONG TERM now. 

Currently at least the following conflicts exist:

o Console applications, for working with the shell for example, can not use 
the same keybindings as other applications since the Control-C, Control-Z etc
already have a special meaning for the shell.

o Application keybindings can conflict with window manager keybindings

Using different modifier keys for different contexts would be a
possible way to avoid conflicts. Such a migration would also be a good
opportunity
to resolve other differences that exist. For example "Redo", "Find next match", 
"Find and replace", "Add bookmark", "Redraw" differs today, according
to the above document.

But this means that some keybindings have to change
modifier key,  and it only makes sense if it can be implemented
generally. Of course it
also needs to be communicated to and accepted by users. Not easy - is
it even possible?

Claes