In 2005, the GNOME developers set themselves the ambitious goal of occupying 10% of the global desktop market by 2010. 14 years have passed since the announcement of this initiative, and almost 10 years have passed since the moment when it should have become a reality. And so far, GNOME has a much smaller share than planned. What went wrong?
At the moment, the βgamingβ share of Linux on the market is less than 1% of the total number of users of the Steam service, and in fact it is games that are the main engine for popularizing the OS. The share of desktop computers with Linux does not exceed 2% on a global scale.
Thus, the share of GNOME on a global scale has not reached the expected level. However, the same can be said about Canonical, which in 2015 intended to reach 200 million Ubuntu users, but did not realize this on either desktop or mobile platforms.
In general, the situation with Linux on desktops is just the opposite of what it is on server and network platforms, where the free OS reigns almost undivided. However, on workstations, Windows has the advantage, which is explained by better work with games and specialized software.
This is the reason for the low popularity of the free OS. And the GNOME graphical shell, in addition, is being squeezed by numerous forks and alternatives: from KDE to Cinnamon. Alas, this seems to be the βAchilles heelβ of open source, because independence from corporations and tight control turns into a whole bunch of standards and βcrutchesβ.
Source: 3dnews.ru