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As a long time Linux enthusiast, everything listed in your comment is a _fantastic_ idea. I applaud the effort and I can't see anything wrong with this directio

As a long time Linux enthusiast, everything listed in your comment is a _fantastic_ idea. I applaud the effort and I can't see anything wrong with this direction. But I really do not understand those that complain about GNOME and Red Hat building a, quote, walled garden. So what? Give me the open source walled garden! Why does every Linux desktop have to accomodate all the whims of every user? Why does GNOME have to be compatible with your homegrown DE? Do you also expect emacs to ship features that are compatible with vim? I want a consistent experience, that is open source. I want a libre Apple experience. There should be nothing shameful in having a group of people pushing towards that goal.

michaelmrose 5y ago
If we consider the canonical walled garden IOS its not the garden anyone disagrees with its the walls. Such construction always always serves the builders interests not the users. IOS is a walled garden insofar as being open to only Apple approved software so Apple can extract maximum revenue not to enhance the users experience. Comparatively Red Hat's garden is quite the opposite. For example flatpak in contrast to Snap allows one to run and use third party repos much like traditional package managers. Red Hat isn't a walled garden and its not clear that there would be anything virtuous about it if it were. It certainly wouldn't provide you with an Apple experience on Linux. Apple makes i think about 9 billion per quarter on Macs. Red Hat on the other hand makes 1.25B and virtually zero from the desktop. Caring about desktop experience and having a pile of money to pay people to work on it gets you an Apple experience not limiting user choice nor abandoning the idea of building an ecosystem of interchangeable parts. Let me turn your question on its head. > Why does GNOME have to be compatible with your homegrown DE? Why instead would one desktop environment be in any fashion incompatible with any other desktop environment? If standards it depends on need to evolve logically they ought to evolve in such a fashion as other applications can non trivially evolve with new and improved standards. > Do you also expect emacs to ship features that are compatible with vim? Actually yes. The most prominent example would be evil mode but there is also viper and several newer implementations of modal editing and features first dreamed up for vim.
- 1_player 5y ago
  > The most prominent example would be evil mode but there is also viper and several newer implementations of modal editing and features first dreamed up for vim. Similar to != compatible. Evil-mode is inspired by vim, but you can't use it on vim. Elisp isn't written to be as compatible as vimscript as possible. They are two distinct projects. GNOME wants to become its own distinct project, not because of superiority or dislike about other DEs, but because they want to go for strict conventions and exotic ideas which are often at odds with other DEs philosophies. I am still waiting to hear why this is so bad. I don't hear anyone hating ElementaryOS for trying to do the same.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    There have always been many distinctly different graphical environments for Linux. Being incompatible doesn't serve this goal which is why you don't need something like wine to run gnome apps because they are executing in the same environment as say KDE apps. This ceasing to be would have to be regarded as extraordinary and undesirable. It's hard enough to get people to support Linux.
pxc 5y ago
I've been a Plasma user for what feels like forever now, but I think this > Why does every Linux desktop have to accomodate all the whims of every user? is exactly right. I think having strongly opinionated desktops to choose from is a good thing, and that that kind of pluralism is more likely to lead to the development of new ideas and execute them well than pluralism within desktops. I wish that XDG standards ran deeper (for example, that there was just a single, well-supported VFS implementation for all DEs, and that drag-and-drop could be handled in a universally compatible way). But in terms of experiences, I think differences between DEs is a good thing, and that some DEs should have a narrower focus than others so that they can execute their visions better.

michaelmrose 5y ago

If we consider the canonical walled garden IOS its not the garden anyone disagrees with its the walls. Such construction always always serves the builders interests not the users. IOS is a walled garden insofar as being open to only Apple approved software so Apple can extract maximum revenue not to enhance the users experience. Comparatively Red Hat's garden is quite the opposite. For example flatpak in contrast to Snap allows one to run and use third party repos much like traditional package managers. Red Hat isn't a walled garden and its not clear that there would be anything virtuous about it if it were. It certainly wouldn't provide you with an Apple experience on Linux. Apple makes i think about 9 billion per quarter on Macs. Red Hat on the other hand makes 1.25B and virtually zero from the desktop. Caring about desktop experience and having a pile of money to pay people to work on it gets you an Apple experience not limiting user choice nor abandoning the idea of building an ecosystem of interchangeable parts. Let me turn your question on its head. > Why does GNOME have to be compatible with your homegrown DE? Why instead would one desktop environment be in any fashion incompatible with any other desktop environment? If standards it depends on need to evolve logically they ought to evolve in such a fashion as other applications can non trivially evolve with new and improved standards. > Do you also expect emacs to ship features that are compatible with vim? Actually yes. The most prominent example would be evil mode but there is also viper and several newer implementations of modal editing and features first dreamed up for vim.

1_player 5y ago
> The most prominent example would be evil mode but there is also viper and several newer implementations of modal editing and features first dreamed up for vim. Similar to != compatible. Evil-mode is inspired by vim, but you can't use it on vim. Elisp isn't written to be as compatible as vimscript as possible. They are two distinct projects. GNOME wants to become its own distinct project, not because of superiority or dislike about other DEs, but because they want to go for strict conventions and exotic ideas which are often at odds with other DEs philosophies. I am still waiting to hear why this is so bad. I don't hear anyone hating ElementaryOS for trying to do the same.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  There have always been many distinctly different graphical environments for Linux. Being incompatible doesn't serve this goal which is why you don't need something like wine to run gnome apps because they are executing in the same environment as say KDE apps. This ceasing to be would have to be regarded as extraordinary and undesirable. It's hard enough to get people to support Linux.

pxc 5y ago

I've been a Plasma user for what feels like forever now, but I think this > Why does every Linux desktop have to accomodate all the whims of every user? is exactly right. I think having strongly opinionated desktops to choose from is a good thing, and that that kind of pluralism is more likely to lead to the development of new ideas and execute them well than pluralism within desktops. I wish that XDG standards ran deeper (for example, that there was just a single, well-supported VFS implementation for all DEs, and that drag-and-drop could be handled in a universally compatible way). But in terms of experiences, I think differences between DEs is a good thing, and that some DEs should have a narrower focus than others so that they can execute their visions better.