A Register opinion piece argues that the proliferation of Windows-inspired desktop environments in Linux represents wasted effort and fragmentation. It lists over 20 such desktops and urges developers to cooperate on shared standards. The author suggests mixing components like panels and file managers to improve efficiency.
The article highlights the tendency of Linux developers to reinvent existing concepts, particularly in desktop environments, which it describes as an 'elephant in the room.' It notes that a majority of these environments mimic the core design of Windows 95, including a taskbar along one screen edge with an app-launcher button, open window buttons, a system tray with clock and notifications, and an icon-based file manager with an optional directory tree pane.
This design originated in Windows 95, released in 1995 and fitting on 13 floppies (under 25 MB), with the original Explorer at 200 kB. The piece recalls Microsoft's unfulfilled threat to sue over similarities nearly 20 years ago, attributing the inaction to the diffuse nature of free, community-driven efforts.
Listing maintained desktops in approximate age order, it includes Xfce, MATE (a GNOME 2 fork), LXDE, Cinnamon (from Linux Mint), Budgie (in Vala), GNOME Classic and Flashback, Deepin, UKUI, Enlightenment with forks E16 and Moksha, Equinox (EDE) using FLTK, Lumina (C++ and Qt), ChromeOS's Aura, IceWM, JWM, and FVWM95. These total around 23, implemented in languages like C, C++, and Vala, using toolkits such as Gtk, Qt, EFL, and FLTK.
The author criticizes this duplication as a 'titanic waste' of programmer effort, comparing it to having 23 incompatible Vi clones instead of a single Vim. Invoking the Unix Philosophy—'Write programs that do one thing and do it well... Write programs to work together'—it proposes shared config formats and interchangeable components, like using MATE's panel with Xfce's window manager and Cinnamon's file manager. It argues that none achieve the 'simple elegance' of the original Windows 95 design, and after 27 years since KDE's debut, the FOSS community should consolidate to compete better.