On: Why Linux Succeeded

[rhabarba]

The fact that the article calls Linux a product right from the beginning shows one of its flaws: Unlike other free systems like OpenBSD, Linux suffers from being required to satisfy “the market”. The results: systemd and the choice between being “like Windows” (KDE) or “like macOS” (Gnome).

“In some sense, you only hit what you aim at. What was the goal of the Linux community--to replace Windows? One can imagine higher aspirations.”

- Bill Joy, 2010.

[msla → rhabarba]

> the choice between being “like Windows” (KDE) or “like macOS” (Gnome).

Or, you know, neither, like Window Maker.

[rhabarba → msla]

Which I prefer to use myself, but it was born as “like NeXT” (and it still is); so, just another “like an actually successful desktop”.

[msla → rhabarba]

So what "actually successful desktop" are the tiling window managers like?

They're probably more successful than Window Maker.

[iso1631 → rhabarba]

I vaguely remember using KDE in the Konqueror days, and Gnome in the early foot days, but I haven't used either for 20 years, using black/fluxbox and more recently xfce

[rhabarba → iso1631]

Xfce started as a CDE clone. I wonder what made them resemble Windows instead.