I'm not a Gnome 3 user or affiliated with Gnome. Personally I find it rather too bloated and sometimes buggy. I use i3, polybar and Rofi for my desktop. I think

I'm not a Gnome 3 user or affiliated with Gnome. Personally I find it rather too bloated and sometimes buggy. I use i3, polybar and Rofi for my desktop. I think you are reading rather too much into my words, my point was only that, in general, Windows is not being copied by Linux desktops. And that only "some part" of the community want a Windows clone. I take your point that Gnome 3 is criticised for many additional reasons other than deviating from Windows. Gnome is basically controlled by RedHat, a billion dollar company and they absolutely do care about software patents, they are not like most projects. Linux Mint is what I had in mind as a "garage effort" providing, IMHO, a Windows clone.