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For better or worse, part of the story of the FOSS ecosystem is that there is no singular "Linux community." Rather, there are many communities with different

For better or worse, part of the story of the FOSS ecosystem is that there is no singular "Linux community." Rather, there are many communities with different interests, some of them overlapping, some of them complementary, and some of them competing. There are plenty of detractors to modern technologies such as systemd and Wayland, but there are also plenty of supporters (or else those technologies wouldn't have gotten adopted in the first place), and there are people who don't have a passionate opinion one way or the other as long as their software works. This lack of a singular community is simultaneously a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing due to the freedom FOSS software provides; not all software is going to fit everybody's needs, and FOSS allows the freedom to modify software tools. However, the curses are resources spread thinly across competing projects, as well as the rough, sometimes chaotic development cycles that sometimes occur in bazaar-style projects that lack Steve Jobs-esque "benevolent dictators" who have a clear vision for the product being developed. For example, the transition from X to Wayland would've probably gone smoother if there were a powerful entity that was able to enforce its will among Linux users and developers, but since there is no singular Linux community, the "bazaar" independently adopted Wayland at each project's own pace. This is the fundamental difference between Linux versus platforms whose vendors exert greater control, such as Windows and especially macOS.

soulbadguy 2y ago
> It's a blessing due to the freedom FOSS software provides; not all software is going to fit everybody's needs, and FOSS allows the freedom to modify software tools. In my view, the lack of singular vision and focus is not something intrinsic to FOSS. When i look like at projects like blender3d, Cpython, linux kernel,LLVM etc... I think a project can be fully OSS, with a degree of cohesion and focus conducive to faster interation and improvements. I would even go as far as saying that the most successfull projects tends to be that way. The linux desktop space just seems to be particularly fragmented. Seems to be mainly from the historical of a system born mainly from command line space, a weird attachment to a certain "old ways" of doing things etc... And a whole lot of strong personalities too busy bike shedding to see the forest from the tree. > For example, the transition from X to Wayland would've probably gone smoother if there were a powerful entity that was able to enforce its will among Linux users and developers, but since there is no singular Linux community, the "bazaar" independently adopted Wayland at each project's own pace. That's fair. A strong leader would have helped. But i think more than a strong leader, a shift in the community culture is more what's needed. But i am not holding my breath. People interested in desktop OS are either using MacOS or windows 11.
- flakeoil 2y ago
  > In my view, the lack of singular vision and focus is not something intrinsic to FOSS. When i look like at projects like blender3d, Cpython, linux kernel,LLVM etc... I think one of the differences here is that the Desktop is more of an aesthetics and ergonomic thing compared to your examples above. It's harder for people to agree on and when there are subjective feelings around it instead of objective, there is a need for a central decision point which takes quick decisions.
  - soulbadguy 2y ago
    To a certain extend i agree. I can see how we can see the world of easthetism less objective and therefore harder to drive consensus around. But i don't think the problem with linux desktop is the easthetics. Agreeing on the objectives and fundational technical decisions. For example, kernel scheduling policy influencing latency and desktop responsiveness, X vs wayland and the impact on things like touch screen etc...
- pauby 2y ago
  > People interested in desktop OS are either using MacOS or windows 11. This feels very much like its written by somebody who hasn't used Linux as a desktop OS and is an unneeded back-handed comment that does the rest of your otherwise reasonable comment, a dis-service.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Those of us that care about 100% of laptop features are mostly using macOS, Windows, or eventually ChromeOS, with our Desktop Linux VMs (VMWare, Virtual Box, Virtualization framework, WSL, Crostini). Even if buying from Tuxedo or System76, there is some footnote on some features that might not exactly work out. Now if Desktop Linux is a traditional deskto/tower PC, or something like a Raspeberry kind of devices, then yeah probably everything works, including YouTube hardware video decoding and such. Using GNU/Linux distributions since 1995.
    - 2y ago

soulbadguy 2y ago

> It's a blessing due to the freedom FOSS software provides; not all software is going to fit everybody's needs, and FOSS allows the freedom to modify software tools. In my view, the lack of singular vision and focus is not something intrinsic to FOSS. When i look like at projects like blender3d, Cpython, linux kernel,LLVM etc... I think a project can be fully OSS, with a degree of cohesion and focus conducive to faster interation and improvements. I would even go as far as saying that the most successfull projects tends to be that way. The linux desktop space just seems to be particularly fragmented. Seems to be mainly from the historical of a system born mainly from command line space, a weird attachment to a certain "old ways" of doing things etc... And a whole lot of strong personalities too busy bike shedding to see the forest from the tree. > For example, the transition from X to Wayland would've probably gone smoother if there were a powerful entity that was able to enforce its will among Linux users and developers, but since there is no singular Linux community, the "bazaar" independently adopted Wayland at each project's own pace. That's fair. A strong leader would have helped. But i think more than a strong leader, a shift in the community culture is more what's needed. But i am not holding my breath. People interested in desktop OS are either using MacOS or windows 11.

flakeoil 2y ago
> In my view, the lack of singular vision and focus is not something intrinsic to FOSS. When i look like at projects like blender3d, Cpython, linux kernel,LLVM etc... I think one of the differences here is that the Desktop is more of an aesthetics and ergonomic thing compared to your examples above. It's harder for people to agree on and when there are subjective feelings around it instead of objective, there is a need for a central decision point which takes quick decisions.
- soulbadguy 2y ago
  To a certain extend i agree. I can see how we can see the world of easthetism less objective and therefore harder to drive consensus around. But i don't think the problem with linux desktop is the easthetics. Agreeing on the objectives and fundational technical decisions. For example, kernel scheduling policy influencing latency and desktop responsiveness, X vs wayland and the impact on things like touch screen etc...
pauby 2y ago
> People interested in desktop OS are either using MacOS or windows 11. This feels very much like its written by somebody who hasn't used Linux as a desktop OS and is an unneeded back-handed comment that does the rest of your otherwise reasonable comment, a dis-service.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Those of us that care about 100% of laptop features are mostly using macOS, Windows, or eventually ChromeOS, with our Desktop Linux VMs (VMWare, Virtual Box, Virtualization framework, WSL, Crostini). Even if buying from Tuxedo or System76, there is some footnote on some features that might not exactly work out. Now if Desktop Linux is a traditional deskto/tower PC, or something like a Raspeberry kind of devices, then yeah probably everything works, including YouTube hardware video decoding and such. Using GNU/Linux distributions since 1995.
  - 2y ago