Re: What Window Manager/Desktop Environment do you use, and why?

On 2025-07-02, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 2 Jul 2025 11:56:11 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man wrote:
>

Anyone who truly does respect freedom, and I don't think Lawrence comes
across as such, knows that having a choice is not enough, as that always
exists, but that there are options, viable paths where people can
exercise their freedom of choice on a somewhat equal footing.

>
In other words, it’s only “freedom” if you can run to someone who will
hold your hand and tell you what choice to make?
>

The licence alone doesn't convey freedom, it is the autonomy and agency
the software gives the user.  Does the software allow the user to
configure it, to piece it together with other software?

>
The *nix philosophy is “mechanism, not policy”. It lets you make your own
choices, it doesn’t dictate choices to you. Free software does indeed
follow this philosophy. But then you get people complaining that
exercising that choice is too hard, because it takes intellectual effort
to understand the choices available to you.
>

Does it push the developers vision, or does it give the user the
freedom to create their vision?

>
“Create their vision” is what the PR folk working for proprietary
companies like to say, isn’t it: you can “create your vision” with Adobe
products, but you have to use them the Adobe way. Why would you want to do
anything different? We know best, just give us your money and stop trying
to think for yourself.

As I said in another thread, there was a coincidence that Free Software
was interlinked with the Unix philosophy because of people who has
shared interest in both.  The GNU project is the core example, as is the
Linux kernel.