With friends likr Gnome, you don’t need enemies anymore. If gnome were to collaborate with others, there would much less necessity for forks (such as in the GTK2 days). But instead, the close any feature request minimally differing their pristine idea of what a desktop should look like, shut down any other discussion about the topic, and god forbid if you mention you want customization like themes or, gasp, tray icons.
Sure, this may come off polemic, but I very much think that gnome is largely to blame for the fragmentation of the Linux desktop.
Redhat. They've made some power-plays (including with Gnome) and have been successful at it.
Ubuntu tried to do the same more than once, but fell so hard on their face every time that it can be hard to tell that they were trying to do the same thing.
The only "fragmentation" GNOME directly caused was MATE being forked out of GNOME 2. Fragmentation is just the natural evolution of FOSS because there isn't a monopoly shoving license terms down the throat of every customer. GNOME's philosophy is kind of restrictive but they are not the one to blame for the fragmentation of the Linux desktop especially considering DEs and distributions are SEPARATE things and many distributions provide multiple DE options bundled at install.
If GNOME did not exist, KDE would have been commercial ( Qt at least ). To prevent that, an alternative to GNOME would have arisen.
If KDE had not started with this flaw, I would agree with you.
For the most part, the Linux Desktop has been a majority using some variation of GNOME with a dedicated minority using KDE.
I have not used “GNOME” since the 2.x days but I have always been in the GNOME world. Even XFCE is really another base for GNOME.
I have not used KDE since the 2.x days either but current Plasma is pretty good and I do not mind it. I put Big Linux on a laptop and have not taken its version on KDE off yet.
> If GNOME did not exist, KDE would have been commercial ( Qt at least ). To prevent that, an alternative to GNOME would have arisen.
KDE wouldn't be commercial.
Qt didn't have the ideal license back than but you could use it free.
At the point KDE would be the de facto standard Unix desktop there would have been enough power behind that to arrive in the end at the exact same compromise regarding Qt that we have now, I'm quite sure.
There was no need to split the Unix desktop forever, and cause infinite pain as a result, by invoking the nuclear option, which the Gnome people did!
And given the further background story of one of the most prominent people behind that whole story you can even construct a reasonably believable "conspiracy theory" around the things that happened… ;-)
Also there are quite some other DEs. Only that there are just two big ones. If one of the big ones would not exist there would be a default one with the greatest market share.
Normal people don't reinvent the wheel when there is no need for that…
There was no need to split KDE. And Gnome exist solely for political reasons. Like I said, look at the history.
There wouldn't be a single standard desktop with >80% usage regardless of whether GNOME existed, and KDE will merely be among one of many desktop environment options. That's just the nature of how things work in this space.
You’re talking about Gnome as if it’s an end onto itself. But it did not appear out of thin air just to disrupt KDE’s dominance.
Look at the history again. Look at the names on the emails and posts.
It was done by people, because they wanted it done. For “solely political reasons”? But that’s exactly what politics means: making sure people get what they want. As opposed to everyone having what you want.
You are talking as if those two DEs are the only two options in existence. They are not. Xfce started development in 1996 ahead og GNOME. And if the "political reasons" you talked about were related to licensing issues with Qt, then GNOME is not the one to blame for. Asking people to look at the history is only going to make them discover the truth you don't want to admit.
If you have to use words like "most violent" and "nuclear" to describe a valid & normal act of launching free & open source software that everyone had the freedom of choice regarding whether to use it or not, you need to seriously re-evaluate your personal priorities and worldview.
I use both GNOME and KDE daily for different use cases, and the fact that people like you who hold such views exist is downright disturbing.
KDE was not "THE UNIX DESKTOP"...it never was, not for a single UNIX. If anything Gnome (aka Java Desktop) was a Unix Desktop (SUN Solaris) and is it still for Oracle Solaris.
Gnome 3 can't be responsible for Mate, Cinnamon and Budgie adding 3 fragments to the desktop environment space instead of those 3 adding 1 by merging each other.
Gnome 3 brushed people the wrong way but blaming it for fragmentation when those 3 went away to do their 3 different things doesn't make sense.
Come on, MATE and Cinnamon ? To be consistent Cinnamon shouldn't exist and only MATE would make the cut if Gnome 3 is the problem.
Sure, this may come off polemic, but I very much think that gnome is largely to blame for the fragmentation of the Linux desktop.