Linux came pretty close to being usable for the general public (not gamers) 13-14 years ago. Then Gnome 3 happened and broke everything, then Wayland happened and broke everything again.
As much as Linus tries to keep a stable platform, the effort is pretty pointless (for desktop) if the rest of the ecosystem decides to change everything every few years.
>Linux came pretty close to being usable for the general public (not gamers) 13-14 years ago. Then Gnome 3 happened and broke everything, then Wayland happened and broke everything again.
I don't think it's deliberate if that's what you implying, but there is a definite lack of care about not breaking the ecosystem (for lack of a better word) that harms the whole "Linux in the desktop" ideal.
Which is to be expected given that it's free and people do what is fun to them (and greenfield is always more fun) and all that, but it's still a shame.
I DO think it's deliberate if that's what you implying. There's a lot of money riding on Linux being the go-to server OS. If a bunch of NORMIES start using Linux on the desktop, and get a Linux virus (because those will surely appear, if Linux is ever popular on the desktop), it'll hurt Linux's mystique as "hack-proof".
> I'm so totally impressed at this Way New Development Paradigm. Let's call it the "Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers" model, or "CADT" for short.
> It hardly seems worth even having a bug system if the frequency of from-scratch rewrites always outstrips the pace of bug fixing. Why not be honest and resign yourself to the fact that version 0.8 is followed by version 0.8, which is then followed by version 0.8?
> But that's what happens when there is no incentive for people to do the parts of programming that aren't fun. Fixing bugs isn't fun; going through the bug list isn't fun; but rewriting everything from scratch is fun (because "this time it will be done right", ha ha) and so that's what happens, over and over again.
Xorg getting replaced is bound to happen, even without wayland. Security is not an afterthought anymore and getting Xorg fully locked down without sacrificing functionalities seems to be impossible.
As much as Linus tries to keep a stable platform, the effort is pretty pointless (for desktop) if the rest of the ecosystem decides to change everything every few years.