Comment by amlib

> GNOME essentially gutted itself when it switched away from GNOME 2.

It gutted itself because quite frankly it was anemic at best. I was a heavy KDE 3 user back then and I vastly preferred it compared to gnome 2, but as a long time linux user I also recognize that ALL desktop linux solutions were pretty rough back them. This "gutting" was certainly painful and questionable but what we have today, KDE 6 (it also went trough painful changes in KDE 4) and GNOME 49 are leagues ahead of what we had back them and I honestly think it's important for both of these DE to remain distinct.

> And GNOME lives on as a sorry excuse for a bad copy of MacOS desktop looks without the feel.

It feels nothing like MacOS because it doesn't have 40 years of macintosh baggage in it, resulting in it being much more approachable for PC/windows users. I dare say GNOME earns it's distinction of being neither mac or windows, but it's own thing. It is very usable and approachable across beginners and advanced users, but lacks that depth you encounter in the competition.