This is off-topic, but IMO the biggest failure of GNOME 3 is that it called itself GNOME 3. Sure it was mostly the same community working on a similar project.

This is off-topic, but IMO the biggest failure of GNOME 3 is that it called itself GNOME 3. Sure it was mostly the same community working on a similar project. But they could have used a new name, and made it a separate offering! GNOME2 had basically completed its mission. It was stable and consistent and had many happy users. But when a "GNOME 3" exists, people are force-upgraded. Except it feels more like a separate product than an "upgrade". In fact GNOME 2 lives on but strangely that project had to re-brand itself as MATE: http://mate-desktop.org/ http://mate-desktop.org/. Gtk2 and GNOME 2 did the same thing to all the happy users of GNOME1/Gtk1.2. It was a community upheaval with big consequences. I think your Gtk2/Gtk3 gripe is the same. If the goals are different enough, let's please let the projects live happily in parallel.