> They could easily contribute to another project or fork, and if DE don’t matter they don’t have to make one either.
That's what they were doing before, and it didn't work. Pop!OS ships with an opinionated desktop called "Cosmic", which is based on GNOME and makes several breaking changes to customize the desktop for their specific use case. With GNOME 40, those customizations are no longer possible/sane, so they're deciding to write a new desktop to end their dependency on GNOME. I frankly dislike the current ownership of GNOME, but I also think they're just as bad as Microsoft and Apple (though that's a discussion for a different time and place).
In any case, writing a DE isn't hard work these days. They can still bundle other software to complete the experience the same way Microsoft and Apple do, and they can even steal system components like the GNOME Settings manager wholecloth. They're transitioning from a bloated set of patches to a much smaller, faster codebase. I fail to see how this is a downgrade.
> More DE is not the solution
Well, neither is less DE. GNOME has already tried that, by pretending like other desktops don't matter and introducing asinine, breaking changes that completely destroy the workflow of it's users and developers. Care to guess how that turned out? Recent GNOME releases are both unstable and feature-incomplete, with gaping security flaws and only a modicum of functionality to show for it.
> So you changed your mind that that package managers don’t matter. Either they don’t matter and you build from source or they do and you want one with binaries. Which is it?
You're driving a false equivalency. On my distro (and most distros marketed towards new users), you can just use your built-in software manager to grab the package from official repos. In just about every distribution I've ever used, there was a GUI that allowed you to interface with your package manager, no command line required.
TL:DR - Linux has a lot of problems, but fragmentation is not one of them, nor can it ever be fixed. You should look into how SystemD tried to 'fix' this issue, and only ended up bastardizing the Unix philosophy while degrading the experience across the board.
>Pop!OS ships with an opinionated desktop called "Cosmic", which is based on GNOME and makes several breaking changes to customize the desktop for their specific use case.
That doesn't mean a new DE is the solution and if the idea you floated was that DE don't matter, its irrelevant to anything that would help linux adaption.
>They're transitioning from a bloated set of patches to a much smaller, faster codebase. I fail to see how this is a downgrade.
They could also contribute to another DE. Its going to be better in some ways, inferior in others, have less features than existing DE, some distros will support it and it'll be another DE in the sea of DE that aren't as popular as GNOME/KDE that needs its own community to support it. What is this an upgrade from? They could rewrite GTK2 in rust, use something stable like MATE, rewrite that in rust, but they want to make a new DE, for what benefit over a fork or rewriting and contributing to a project that could use more help over redoing what others have done?
>Well, neither is less DE.
There is no shortage of DE that need contributors and help, imagine if this was still the attitude of Android, to fragment it by flooding it with UIs and custom skins that that didn't work with others. You therefore get zombie phones with features nobody supports. Do you actually think that more DE with less functions versus a few DE with more functions is better? Becuse that is the current state and its a failure and deterrrant to desktop linux. Nobody wants to switch to linux, get less features and need several programs to do what one would do. Again, what program replaces photoshop? Do you think people needing several programs with less features is not a fragmentation problem and its the best approach?
>You're driving a false equivalency. On my distro (and most distros marketed towards new users), you can just use your built-in software manager to grab the package from official repos. In just about every distribution I've ever used, there was a GUI that allowed you to interface with your package manager, no command line required.
The binaries would have to be compiled for it, which is why package managers matters, unless you are saying that all package managers have all the packages and there is no difference with support.
>TL:DR - Linux has a lot of problems, but fragmentation is not one of them, nor can it ever be fixed.
Fragmentation is a huge issue and why theres a million distros that people freeze on switching, the most successful linux is Android and they fixed it, and its the most successful. I don't know why you keep ignoring this point.
Good God, I should hope so.
> They could easily contribute to another project or fork, and if DE don’t matter they don’t have to make one either.
That's what they were doing before, and it didn't work. Pop!OS ships with an opinionated desktop called "Cosmic", which is based on GNOME and makes several breaking changes to customize the desktop for their specific use case. With GNOME 40, those customizations are no longer possible/sane, so they're deciding to write a new desktop to end their dependency on GNOME. I frankly dislike the current ownership of GNOME, but I also think they're just as bad as Microsoft and Apple (though that's a discussion for a different time and place).
In any case, writing a DE isn't hard work these days. They can still bundle other software to complete the experience the same way Microsoft and Apple do, and they can even steal system components like the GNOME Settings manager wholecloth. They're transitioning from a bloated set of patches to a much smaller, faster codebase. I fail to see how this is a downgrade.
> More DE is not the solution
Well, neither is less DE. GNOME has already tried that, by pretending like other desktops don't matter and introducing asinine, breaking changes that completely destroy the workflow of it's users and developers. Care to guess how that turned out? Recent GNOME releases are both unstable and feature-incomplete, with gaping security flaws and only a modicum of functionality to show for it.
> So you changed your mind that that package managers don’t matter. Either they don’t matter and you build from source or they do and you want one with binaries. Which is it?
You're driving a false equivalency. On my distro (and most distros marketed towards new users), you can just use your built-in software manager to grab the package from official repos. In just about every distribution I've ever used, there was a GUI that allowed you to interface with your package manager, no command line required.
TL:DR - Linux has a lot of problems, but fragmentation is not one of them, nor can it ever be fixed. You should look into how SystemD tried to 'fix' this issue, and only ended up bastardizing the Unix philosophy while degrading the experience across the board.