[BinaryIdiot]

While I agree that there are, in fact, way too many distros and desktops in the Linux space, I disagree with the sense that Ubuntu did damage towards a goal of fewer choices. Just because Gnome is there doesn't mean it's ultimately the best software for the job and sure they likely could have driven a lot of improvements to it but sometimes there needs to be experimentation. If Unity was more popular and found its way to more distros then maybe we'd even seen it go the other way and Gnome would die thus still working towards the goal of fewer choices.

I think it's important for experimentation to occur. Don't contribute to the incumbents only because you want the fewest opinions available.

[brendaningram]

I agree completely that experimentation needs to occur. I definitely don't begrudge them for making the decision to implement Unity.

My initial thoughts were more hypothetical - and I definitely wouldn't suggest that Gnome is the best software/DE around!

If we take Linux Mint for example - they've gone out on their own with custom/forked versions of simple things like XEd, XPlayer, XReader. That isn't experimentation, it's just a difference of product development philosophy. I'm not saying we should all be clones and all use the same software, but at what point do we say "ok, there are 57 text editors out there, let's work with one of them to improve that feature set rather than go out on our own with the 58th editor". Surely the hours of development going in to these "X" apps would be better spent contributing back to something that everybody can use and is already using.

I think for me it all comes back to a deeper philosophical and moral issue - why can't we all just get along and work together on shared solutions.

I feel like this is a relevant quote: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."