The author makes a good point, namely that the Linux desktopspace is too fast a moving target. The Linux kernel is exceptionally stable in its userspace facing

The author makes a good point, namely that the Linux desktopspace is too fast a moving target. The Linux kernel is exceptionally stable in its userspace facing APIs (the most important rule Linus holds up is "we never break userspace"). And userspace has been pretty much stable for a long time as well on the API and ABI side. But everything that's regarded with making desktop environments work, the UI toolkits, configuration APIs, essential DE programs, all that jazz is moving at a breakneck speed and more often than not even "minor" version bumps introduce regressions and subtle incompatibilites. But this problem is not going to be resolved by coalescing all the various Linux distributions into a single vendor model. If anything that would just accelerate the troublemaking processes. What's really required is infusing a culture of high quality engineering, forward thinking and consequence estimation into the community. Focus on fixing bugs and regressions instead of implementing new features.