No matter how great the ideals something is founded on, it will always come down to Money.
And only intense pressure from the supporters can stave that off.
It is easy to increase the cash flow while changing things- merely by relying on common traits in human nature to convince the supporters that what you are doing is what they actually want.
Easier installations.
Less having to think about using software and more time thinking about their projects.
User friendliness.
They all sound great. And can easily be weaponized against us.
Google / Alphabet Inc. is an advertising company. They are about Marketing. Not about providing “free” software and search indexes.
Throw a dollar bill on the table and “Do no evil” gets bumped to the bottom of the Mission Statement. A little bit of evil is ok, if it pays well.
So they provide “free” things that help people out, provide easy references to information and convenience. And these free things gather data about you to sell. That money is used to fund more pojects to find something people want, and Exploit it.
I believe that it is a losing battle. We are outnumbered.
And as people get dissatisfied with MS exploitation, they still bring what is familiar; what they are used to, to Linux. They are used to Demanding things. They are used to convenience and ease - and on Linux, they Expect it for Free.
I believe that the only hope is for the Linux crowd to Combat this, not pander to it.
When I first migrated from Linux, not very long ago, I made the same complaints. The same demands.
Theming and Customization are the most important tools. They are the First thing a new user sees. And they serve as an ever present reminder of what FOSS and Individualism is all about. It is also the first target of those that desire conformity and uniformity to protect a Brand Image (Gnome) and market Linux as a valuable product.
When theming and Customization- Icon sets, Window themes, interfaces and are targeted and threatened; then it is Easy to see where the direction is going. And these have been threatened for years.
And they use Pop Articles to promote their wares- Google Search “Best Linux Themes” and you will be inundated with articles telling you what you want and how popular it is… Without any real grounds. All the same theme- slightly recolored.
One of the strongest points people talk about liking about Zorin OS is its very distinctive and different look. A great thing, as Zorin OS is promoted as aimed toward Windows Migrants. I think members of this forum have an important role in Helping Migrants with Information and support, not equating to the Gnome Philosophy Status Quo.
Helping newer users familiarize themselves with the Terminal as a powerful utility, to not feel intimidated by code and to recognize what is present and easy in Linux and how it benefits them are far more important then providing an answer they do not understand or attempting to Look Smart to them. No, we are All the Smart ones, here.
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I’ll be excited when Zorin OS 16 comes out, and has nothing to do with Gnome anymore. But Zorin distro’s have been using Gnome too much IMO. Although yes its true, not every version of Zorin uses Gnome, that is correct. But just the fact that there has been a version that uses Gnome for each distro upgrade, thats the not cool part.
So, I think getting away from Gnome permanently, is going to be a huge step forward for Zorin OS. Also, Zorin OS incorporating XFCE customisability, would also be a huge step forward for their OS.
But until that happens, I’ll be upgrading to POP OS with XFCE flavor on top, because at least their OS is current and works with modern systems. I do find it weird we haven’t heard anything from the Zorin team for what feels like forever on OS 16 now.
I do respect the Zorin team dev’s for wanting to test the OS and not put out an OS that is totally filled with bugs. However, if they don’t get their next distro out very soon, their going to fall behind. The current version 15.3 is only really good for months more, just saying.
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Keep in mind - Money. Canonical and Gnome are big and powerful and heavy influencers.
Just like the theming example above- Gnome is also strongly pushed with writers telling us all about how Great it is and disclosing none of its failings. They repeat “it’s great” over and over again. Eventually, that does its charm.
I think a choice in desktop environments is a great thing and Zorin OS is unusual in that it offers a Pre-Built Core and Lite version.
And we do have the ability to install other environments- I highly recommend enjoying exploring Enlightenment (top notch), Cinnamon or Mate, Xfce 4.12 or 4.14 and KDE.
It is true that installing other Environments that are not built in have a Very Slight Disadvantage - for example Cinnamon needing to constantly replace the window manager.
But it is very minor.
I hope zorin 16 has more choice of desktop environments directly without needing to install it first. and I hope the software store is improved again and more updated.
The Ubuntu software store is a bit closed off… Zorin Team has no real control over its development or the ins and outs of how it works.
I like your first suggestion, though. I bet Zorin Team would not LOL. That’s a lot more work.
Yeah, I noticed that there is a lot of out of date software in the software center, I knew that wasn’t Zorin’s fault though, as like you say, its from Ubuntu, so its most certainly their fault. Too many times I find myself adding PPA’s I find on sites, just so I can download newer versions of software, either that, or I’ll install via DEB file.
I figure the pandemic probably really slowed things down by quite a lot. However, as long as development teams are NOT sick with Covid, I’d rather they not use the pandemic as an excuse as to why they couldn’t put out software updates lol.
So far things seems to have slowed down a lot, so I guess some of us have to wait and see.
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Except the increasing number of Snaps.
App updates via Software Updater also seem to be further behind the times than before. I was pleased to get a FF update yesterday though.
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Because you mentioned that, I checked for the update. I managed to update Firefox. 
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Thanks for your feedback.