Part of the problem, I think, is that projects like Gnome don't seem to have clear goals, targets or ambitions. In the beginning, Linux desktops were incomplet

Part of the problem, I think, is that projects like Gnome don't seem to have clear goals, targets or ambitions. In the beginning, Linux desktops were incomplete, but they were thriving, developers all keen to add new stuff and catch up with Windows/Mac. And naturally, most of it ended up as almost-copies of other OS's functionality, but with plenty of unique stuff in there too. But then, the desktops slowly became closer and closer to 'feature complete'. So where do you go from there? It seems to me that Gnome has become a 'change for the sake of change' project. Maintaining and making incremental improvements to a desktop isn't that interesting for developers, I guess. So they strike out in all different directions, at the expense of existing users. But there doesn't seem to be any goal any longer in what they are doing. Certainly I can't find anything obvious on their website!