[freedomben]

I'm not trying to argue, I'm surprised and legitimately interested at your comment and would really like to understand where you're coming from.

Are you a current Linux desktop user? How long have you been? What distros do you use?

If Gnome had just paused or become what MATE is today, would we be better off? If you were suddenly emperor of the Gnome Foundation, what would you direct them to do?

[fiddlerwoaroof]

I’ve been using Linux on the desktop since Mandrake 7. I mostly use Debian these days (ever since Ubuntu switched from Gnome 2 to Unity). For a while I just used tiling window managers (xmonad, stumpwm) because I couldn’t make Gnome 3+ work for me. Recently I tried Plasma again and I’ve mostly settled on that being good enough. At this point, I have no confidence in most of the people involved in the Linux desktop initiatives: I’d probably fund MATE and maybe even the Trinity Desktop environment: the best Linux desktop setup I ever had was KDE 3 apps on Gnome 2

[calvinmorrison]

Glad to see another person here aware of Trinity. I'm an active user. KDE3 just nailed the balance of power user + FOSS. Kmail3, Kdiff3, Kpdf, all these tools work wonderfully, intergrate well with Konqueror, the desktop usage is really quite enjoyable

[fiddlerwoaroof]

This page is a good example of everything I dislike about modern Linux desktop developers: https://stopthemingmy.app/

[locke78]

That's not a modern problem and it's not something the developers did. If you have N apps and M themes, you have to test N × M combinations. This is an impossibly large number on any platform that allows users to make their own apps and themes.

It's a lot easier for everyone if the app developers decide they're only going to support a small number of approved themes, or if the theme developers decide they're only going to support a small number of approved apps.