Unix-like WMs and DEs have an unceasing fascination with replicating the Windows and MacOS UIs. But one of the things that made MacOS/NeXTSTEP noteworthy was its out-of-the-box thinking. It would be much better to experiment with what the UI could be rather than copying what it was.
To some extent GNOME seems to be doing this. I haven’t used Windows in too many years to count. But as I recall it, the GNOME of today bears little resemblance to it. Keyboard focused, minimalistic, yet has a modern aesthetic and it is multi-monitor ready.
It would be good if there were more DEs that were courageous or experimentative enough to follow suit and break with Windows and MacOS UIs. Do something that’s different. Something that’s neither GNOME nor those things. That would be the original Mac philosophy.
They never replicate the developer experience, of whole stack frameworks with quite nice productive tooling and modern languages.
I guess nowadays KDE is the only one that comes close, GNOME doesn't really know what they want to be and everyone else never cared about full stack experience.
The way pixels are rendered is a tiny part of the OS experience.
To some extent GNOME seems to be doing this. I haven’t used Windows in too many years to count. But as I recall it, the GNOME of today bears little resemblance to it. Keyboard focused, minimalistic, yet has a modern aesthetic and it is multi-monitor ready.
It would be good if there were more DEs that were courageous or experimentative enough to follow suit and break with Windows and MacOS UIs. Do something that’s different. Something that’s neither GNOME nor those things. That would be the original Mac philosophy.