I can't wait until all proprietary software becomes obsolete due to FLOSS becoming good enough for everyone. From what I see the proprietary operating systems are in decline now, whereas Linux is getting better and better all the time.
As part of the FLOSS rooting crowd, I'd really like that to happen. But we have to face reality: on the desktop, after decades we're still fighting for 2% of the marketshare.
Not that progress hasn't happened. Quite on the contrary. Linux on the desktop experience nowadays is VASTLY superior to even 5 years ago. Of course, users from other camps will complain of features that have been lacking for many years (thumbnails in the file picker!) but alternatives aren't without their problems either: get a seasoned linux to try MacOS or Windows and you'll recognize weaknesses on the other approaches too.
For me, linux on the desktop has been ready for a long time. I don't care if the market share is still in the single digits if it is good enough for me. Since I like the freedom, privacy, security and (yes) ease of use of desktop linux and do not depend on non-multiplatform software and services, there's just no better OS for me. Not everybody has this choice though.
So, linux on the desktop not being popular is not a problem. If it continues popular enough not to be ignored by hardware vendors and service providers, everything else will continue to improve over time.
I agree completely I don’t care if it’s not mainstream. Desktops are usually gaming computers from what I see in my groups no reason to have Linux on there. Linux is on all the servers, most mobile devices, and I mentioned even Sony cameras run Android.
I don’t see any benefit to Linux on desktop being mainstream. I like that it keeps away a lot of users since making things too easy since they’re unwilling to compile from GitHub is a feature, not a bug. It’s a mostly a programmer OS for programmers.
I find this attitude completely elitist and counter productive. Why shouldn’t Linux be for everybody, usable on every type of device? Why should we need to rely on proprietary software for our day-to-day tasks? Don’t you think there is benefit to this?
I think the problem is mostly that mass popularity is sort of at odds with the cowboy attitude of a lot of Linux desktop users. Creating a "standardized experience" like Windows usually means that configurability goes right out the window. It's how you get abominations like dconf or the GNOME music player that won't let you change the directory to read your mp3s from. And a lot of people see things like Wayland this way. Sure, maybe its easier for the average user to have all these formerly separate components like hotkey daemons or screenshot software integrated into one compositor. But why shouldn't I be able to run xbindkeys or sxhkd or whatever hotkey dameon I want? (I know there are reasons for/against, I'm just summarizing the argument.)
I don't understand how you connected these dots and I'd suggest against calling things abominations. You don't have to use dconf or the GNOME music player, those aren't standardized. If someone does like them I think they're perfectly fine, they do exactly what they're advertised to do and nothing more than that. It's also fine if you don't like them, they're just two options from the many configuration databases and media players that you can choose from.
>But why shouldn't I be able to run xbindkeys or sxhkd or whatever hotkey dameon I want?
In some ways you actually can but it depends on the hotkey daemon and how it's implemented. The reason for that is technical, those are implemented with X grabs which are an X11-only API and they have a number of usability and security issues. There are a few key rebinding daemons that use evdev directly so they work with both X11 and Wayland, and also on the console:
https://github.com/samvel1024/kbct
https://github.com/snyball/Hawck
But these also do have similar security issues to X key grabs, in that they effectively operate as keyloggers. If you're looking for an API that works purely within Wayland and lets unprivileged clients request key rebinding, that doesn't exist yet. Somebody would need to specify what that API looks like and figure out a good way to make it secure. What would the end goal of the API be, and how could the system (and by extension, the user) tell the difference between a legitimate hotkey daemon and a malicious keylogger? And would it actually be any better than the approach of snooping evdev? I don't know the answer to these questions but you may have more experience with this than I do.