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> Nice, exactly what Linux needs the most - another desktop environment! One could argue that because no one desktop environment has taken over the Linux minds

> Nice, exactly what Linux needs the most - another desktop environment! One could argue that because no one desktop environment has taken over the Linux mindshare, we haven't invented the one yet, so people keep trying. It's not until something takes over the mindshare (like systemd did), we can all unity and start improving upon the same base.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
I'd argue that the battle over desktop environment supremacy leaves desktop Linux less compelling overall. There is so much choice that it's paralyzing and new users constantly second guess themselves. You have thousands of developers doing their own thing rather than working together to make mainstream choices like Gnome more viable.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  Gnome doesn't want thousands of developers implementing their own visions for their projects and others don't want to donate their time to implementing gnomes vision. The proper thing for them all to do is all implement their own visions and people to use or work on what they please. Nobody asks why Tesla, Ford, and Toyota are wasting everyone's resources by being different company. Nobody suggests having different car manufacturers is paralyzing. Nobody opines that once the perfect car is invented we can just deprecate the rest because those would all be silly positions. The car market and computer uis are an evolving multidimensional entities whose evolving product lines are and have been dependant upon many parties pulling in different directions. It's like looking at only a duck and a pond and asking why the universe couldn't have just made a duck because it would be an ideal choice for that place and time. Of course it couldn't possibly work like that because arriving at that exact solution without intermediate steps would be impossible and besides the duck is no good in the desert or tundra. Also gnome is so flawed in so many ways from leaking memory due to unfixable mismatch between js and compiled code, to nonsensical handling of multiple desktops, to add-ons that both rely on monkey patching your desktop due to lack of addon api and can with a single crash kill your whole session, to hostility towards themeing, to ugly header bars, to hostility towards support for non gnome desktops. It is a worst in class solution.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    > Gnome doesn't want thousands of developers implementing their own visions for their projects and others don't want to donate their time to implementing gnomes vision. This is definitely looking more-and-more like the case. The GNOME team's insistence on cutting people out of their workflow has left them with less contributors... which leaves them with a worse desktop and a roadmap that's being pushed further-and-further back. Every GNOME contributor you meet will try to deny it, but it really has come to a boiling point over the last few months. There have been so many feature cuts, unaddressed issues, internal hostility and asinine workarounds (text is broken on native apps, so ship with Flatpak until we get it fixed! wait, Flatpak has more issues?) that I really struggle to have any respect for their leadership now. They're throwing out pieces of the plane to get it off the runway, and the complete lack of communication combined with their internal holier-than-thou social ethics has turned a transparent, thriving community of users into a miasma of apologists, skeptics and people who have never tried anything else.
    - awrmc 5y ago
      It's not easy for me to take this comment seriously because gnome doesn't actually have anything anyone could define as leadership. It's a decentralized open source thing. You might be incorrectly assuming bad faith.
      - michaelmrose 5y ago
        Every semi persistent grouping of individuals has leadership even if informal and redhat and the gnome foundation have defined leadership structures.
        awrmc 5y ago
        But that's the whole thing. Redhat and the foundation don't have any leadership over a decentralized group of open source developers. Gnome is not like the Linux kernel where there's one giant repository with one lead maintainer serving as a bottleneck. There are individuals who hold more influence but that's more because a lot of other volunteers chose to follow them, not because they seized power from anybody.
wmf 5y ago
I'm pretty sure there will never be The One due to political and psychological factors. Many people use Linux specifically because there's isn't One way to do things.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

I'd argue that the battle over desktop environment supremacy leaves desktop Linux less compelling overall. There is so much choice that it's paralyzing and new users constantly second guess themselves. You have thousands of developers doing their own thing rather than working together to make mainstream choices like Gnome more viable.

michaelmrose 5y ago
Gnome doesn't want thousands of developers implementing their own visions for their projects and others don't want to donate their time to implementing gnomes vision. The proper thing for them all to do is all implement their own visions and people to use or work on what they please. Nobody asks why Tesla, Ford, and Toyota are wasting everyone's resources by being different company. Nobody suggests having different car manufacturers is paralyzing. Nobody opines that once the perfect car is invented we can just deprecate the rest because those would all be silly positions. The car market and computer uis are an evolving multidimensional entities whose evolving product lines are and have been dependant upon many parties pulling in different directions. It's like looking at only a duck and a pond and asking why the universe couldn't have just made a duck because it would be an ideal choice for that place and time. Of course it couldn't possibly work like that because arriving at that exact solution without intermediate steps would be impossible and besides the duck is no good in the desert or tundra. Also gnome is so flawed in so many ways from leaking memory due to unfixable mismatch between js and compiled code, to nonsensical handling of multiple desktops, to add-ons that both rely on monkey patching your desktop due to lack of addon api and can with a single crash kill your whole session, to hostility towards themeing, to ugly header bars, to hostility towards support for non gnome desktops. It is a worst in class solution.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- smoldesu 5y ago
  > Gnome doesn't want thousands of developers implementing their own visions for their projects and others don't want to donate their time to implementing gnomes vision. This is definitely looking more-and-more like the case. The GNOME team's insistence on cutting people out of their workflow has left them with less contributors... which leaves them with a worse desktop and a roadmap that's being pushed further-and-further back. Every GNOME contributor you meet will try to deny it, but it really has come to a boiling point over the last few months. There have been so many feature cuts, unaddressed issues, internal hostility and asinine workarounds (text is broken on native apps, so ship with Flatpak until we get it fixed! wait, Flatpak has more issues?) that I really struggle to have any respect for their leadership now. They're throwing out pieces of the plane to get it off the runway, and the complete lack of communication combined with their internal holier-than-thou social ethics has turned a transparent, thriving community of users into a miasma of apologists, skeptics and people who have never tried anything else.
  - awrmc 5y ago
    It's not easy for me to take this comment seriously because gnome doesn't actually have anything anyone could define as leadership. It's a decentralized open source thing. You might be incorrectly assuming bad faith.
    - michaelmrose 5y ago
      Every semi persistent grouping of individuals has leadership even if informal and redhat and the gnome foundation have defined leadership structures.
      - awrmc 5y ago
        But that's the whole thing. Redhat and the foundation don't have any leadership over a decentralized group of open source developers. Gnome is not like the Linux kernel where there's one giant repository with one lead maintainer serving as a bottleneck. There are individuals who hold more influence but that's more because a lot of other volunteers chose to follow them, not because they seized power from anybody.

wmf 5y ago

I'm pretty sure there will never be The One due to political and psychological factors. Many people use Linux specifically because there's isn't One way to do things.