LXQt 0.11 Released
So while this is on HN, I wanted to talk a bit about LXQt and desktop OSes in general.<p>Context: I&#x27;m one of the original leads on LXQt, and I initiated the merge of Razor-qt and LXDE-Qt into LXQt.<p>I&#x27;ve been using LXQt as my main desktop for several years now. I&#x27;ve kept up with what other desktops have been doing. I&#x27;ve been especially impressed by the efforts of the GNOME team, and especially disappointed with the clusterfuck KDE has become... but those are just details.<p>I feel like the Linux desktop is dead, and one of the worst examples of open source software right now.<p>Almost nobody actually collaborates on anything. Everybody wants to do their own thing and it leads to <i>developer fragmentation</i>. Every project is undermanned. LXQt is <i>especially</i> undermanned right now. The Cinnamon guys, last I heard, want to switch to Qt but don&#x27;t have the developers to do it and would end up being a LXQt clone.<p>Nobody needs that many desktops, especially when nearly all of them are clones of each other in either GTK or Qt and 95% of the apps duplicate each others&#x27; functionality. The worst part is that, with more effort spent on cross-desktop specs and evangelism, software written &quot;for&quot; one desktop would work far better on others. But the XDG (cross desktop group) is in a pathetic state right now, with nobody reading the mailing list and no specs ever being worked on. Nobody cares, because very few people have enough context to see the need for it all.<p>Not to mention the sad state of UI toolkits right now. This isn&#x27;t about GTK vs. Qt or anything... but you can&#x27;t pick up your favourite language (Python, JS, whatever) and easily write cross-platform apps that work well on Linux. So what does everybody do? They ship a god damn copy of Chromium in their app. Bloody electron apps that, of course, respect zero accessibility settings, platform integration out of the window etc. Because that is the easiest thing to do.<p>It&#x27;s pissing me off. Most people who care about their desktop have migrated or are migrating to OSX and the whole thing snowballs.<p>TLDR: No collaboration across desktops. Fragmentation with no cross desktop compatibility. 2016 was the year the Linux desktop died - won&#x27;t anybody revive it?