Curious from people who follow its development closely.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I was kidding about Fedora but Red Hat can actually afford to do that. They're not a generalist distro, they can and should offer their customers a very specific desktop stack.
Part of the reason red hat uses gnome is because it is the only desktop that meets many accessibility requirements. It would be a huge engineering effort to bring any other desktop up to par in that regard. Most graphical Linux software is really far behind in accessibility.
It doesn't have to be KDE. That was just the joke for Fedora.
Unlike Fedora, Red Hat can actually afford to use a single DE and a very specific graphics stack and to get rid of X completely. They don't have to support the full breadth and legacy of Linux desktop apps. For Red Hat machines the desktop is just a means to an end – it facilitates access to certain GUI tools.