Tangent discussion about loyalty

Chat about Zorin
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Earlier I commented about a lack of shame for a lack of distro loyalty and this is why.
It's just like competitive marketing vs a monopoly.

And I have been outspoken about this since this discourse version of the forum began: To Not Encourage Brand Loyalty.

Brand Loyalty is enabling and imbalanced. You are giving someone else your keys.
Remember, a company is not in a personal relationship with the consumer. Giving it loyalty gives it power over you. Power that can and will be exploited.

Unconditional love:
There is not such thing. It is conditional and dependent on fair treatment.
Zorin OS has announced intentions to abandon Zorin OS Lite.
While this tacks onto user concerns over the long term sustainability of Zorin OS as a whole, oft expressed (For good reason as in doing, they would have eliminated half their product line by sunsetting Lite), it also moves beyond.

This is not about Zorin OS giving me what I want. I can install and modify XFCE or another D.E. easily.
It is about Zorin OS offering exclusivity to Gnome - as a loyalty. It denies support within GnuLinux as a whole, favoring centralization, dominance and choice limiting.

My long term "loyalty" to Zorin OS is conditional. Zorin OS must be loyal to the users interests. Not company interests (Or at least, not giving preferential treatment to company interests.)

I do not validate my choice of Zorin OS by how many other people agree with my opinion.

Autonomy and Independence:
As with many forms of relationships; I have striven to ensure I can be independent so that I am not codependent on Zorin OS providing for my needs. By learning more than I knew at the beginning, I better enable myself (make or customize any distro to meet my needs... or make my own distro from scratch) rather than enable another.

Being critical of Zorin OS can often be Positive Constructive Feedback. It is important to not defend Zorin OS upon sight of critical examination. That... is loyalty, not merit based argument.
Being supportive of Zorin OS must be bolstered with evidence. Without evidence, it is just loyalty, not merit based experience.

And no one should feel obligated to refrain from exploring their options in the GnuLinux Universe. If Zorin OS remains a strong contender, with what the ZorinGroup provides as an OS provider, people will choose Zorin OS based in rational merit. It will be valued as earned. Deserved. Respected.

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Agreed.

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Also agree with this. Spot-on.

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Attachments to others' creations is always dangerous. I've allowed myself to get truly, deeply attached to one game IP in my life. The sixth mainline installment wasn't just bad; it was a betrayal of the franchise's core concepts and most of what its players loved about it in an effort to chase a larger player base. I was embarrassingly deeply upset, had a week off of work just for this that was completely ruined, the usual discourse about the game that had taken place with my best friend since the second installment was instead about how much it sucked, and I was absolutely livid. I'd like to think it's obvious from my posts here that I can be too verbose, but that I try to make points I can support, not emotional screeds. My negative reviews were ten thousand words long.

That's all because I'd trusted and assumed a game would always be fun. How much worse is brand loyalty going to hurt people who are attached to an operating system if it does something daft, and workflows, familiarity, security, and data are threatened? Well, the first plans for Windows Recall come to mind. (Not that the improvements are adequate.)

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Let me be clear. I advocate for Zorin because it has much of what I want in an OS in terms of looks and ease. Simple and no-frills. Not because it's "Zorin." There's been other OSes that I've thought I'd go with after Zorin, but nah. That's part of the point of hopping distros; to see what you like and what you don't like. I myself like Linux Mint, too, and am waiting to see how Pop!_OS turns out when the beta of 24.04 comes out. But for now, it's Zorin all the way. The Zorin Group listens, and uses our feedback. That's one thing I like, too, and has helped earn my commitment as an user to Zorin. And so on and on. This stance (or way of looking at things) is, I think, what others here also use. Agree about blind loyalty. I think that's what needs to be watched out for (and cautioned against). Thanks to everyone.

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I'm new to Zorin, how do you know that Zorin focuses on Gnome as a loyalty? It's not how they publicly motivated their decision to terminate Lite.

It's a business. They need and want to be efficient and if they think Gnome will serve them better in long term - it's a reasonable decision.
Also, it's better that they focus on one DE, with better user support and general quality, than attempt to offer 2, but less quality. Competition is too big.

It denies support within GnuLinux as a whole, favoring centralization, dominance and choice limiting.

It's not like they install some kind of lock on your computer, against installing any other distro/D.E. of your choice.

In fact... considering it's a for-profit company, I find this forum very liberal in that regard. People freely discuss alternatives to Zorin, even criticise it a bit and Zorin group seem very chill about that. I for one appreciate that.

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100%
Add to that wishful thinking.

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As you ask about what you see as an assumption, so can I.
Why do you speculate that offering two, as they have done for seventeen years must equate to less quality?
The competition, generally, offers more than two D.E.'s, setting Zorin OS apart as an outlier.

Actions speak in many ways that words do not.

I addressed this:

Given my clear wording, it is a Red Herring to suggest that my post implies a lock.
What Zorin OS is doing: Denying Support for any D.E. that is Not Gnome.
So while we can install Plasma, LXDE, XFCE, etc... they are not official. Not supported. Not customized by Zorin OS.
It transfers any Non-Gnome setup to - Not Supported and Not Covered.

And more... this is a message. When one of the leading distros, like Zorin OS, makes such a drastic move (remember, Zorin OS is unusual in offering only one desktop environment), it says more to users. It says they think Gnome is best and all that is needed. That the other options are inferior.

Disagreement does not equate to enmity.

Every single engagement I have ever had with the ZorinGroup has demonstrated that they maintain honesty, integrity, clear critical thinking and very open benefit of the doubt.
As individuals, I respect them a great deal.
But as you say, this is not personal. We are not friends.
I do not know either of their favorite colors.
This is business.
In business, we must be aware and self aware of what is critical.
A users needs come first and if a users needs necessitate a distro other than Zorin; the proper thing to do is to point them in the right direction to help them resolve issues.
Not... to promote Brand Loyalty at others expense.

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I feel as though this thread is getting slightly a bit tangential and may need to either be split off or closed. It's slowly becoming more about loyalty/choice/insert term here (however one perceives this) rather than simply official numbers as requested initially.

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Done. :slight_smile:

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Because I have read, inclusively from you, that sometimes issues reported from users (many for Gnome-based editions) accumulate and users are not helped on time.
Any time put into maintaining Xfce-edition means less time that can be put into the Gnome-edition, obviously.

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That is a fair bit of reasoning. However, if we examine the false dilemma fallacy, we see that this assumes a zero sum maintainer availability.
In reality, however, time is not negated by focusing on the whole of a project.

Otherwise, we could eliminate anything from a project on such a basis, including essential components or frills (Like Zorin OS extensions like Jelly Mode).

Gnome upstream bugs, dependency chains, design rigidity, UI regressions, and Wayland compatibility are all factors that can inhibit time constraints.

What I find most interesting is that your argument Appeals to Consequences:
This can mean that Gnome has a higher strategic or user priority.
Or that Xfce does not justify its own existence or support demands.

Which is the very message I suggested that it sends.

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This can mean that Gnome has a higher strategic or user priority.
Or that Xfce does not justify its own existence or support demands.

Looking from a business perspective, perhaps it is indeed so.
Who is the main target user for Zorin, to make a profit? My understanding is someone coming from Windows 10 and wants to keep using the same hardware.
If their computer was running Win 10 fine, then so it will Gnome-based edition.

The user whose hardware is so old that they must use Xfce instead, probably (I mean, most of them) would not want or afford to pay for a Zorin Pro licence.

As to the merits of Xfce vs Gnome apart from performance - I personally doubt the average/casual target users, switching from Windows, cares much about that. "If it works and looks nice then... just use it and call it a day".

Whether, under the hood, it uses Xfce vs Gnome, or Wayland vs Xorg, or systemd vs (SysV? I don't even know) -- why should they care?
Life is much bigger than that.

For those who do care about these choices - luckily, there is plenty of alternatives on DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD. .

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These are valid points.
Perhaps from the ZorinGroups perspective, they can reach that conclusion if their thinking is similar to yours.

My points offer more thoughts to consider. Consider them additional contributions to your reasoning, rather than rebutting them.

This leads directly to:

The question as to why they should care is then dismissed and minimized by the one that follows. Again... I can excuse anything with "life is bigger than that problem."

Let's focus on the Windows OS users problems:

  • feeling restricted in software.
  • feeling locked in by Microsoft
  • vendor lock in
  • UI Inflexibility and Restrictions and Shell lockdown
  • desktop integration and standardization, reduced customization and workflow tweaking
  • system performance

There are many other reasons to care, like security, privacy, ads and data collection that are not D.E. choice dependent, as well - which you can cite.

But what I am focusing on here is the users frustration over lack of control over their own desktop.
But emulating the same, with Gnome which is notorious for locking out control (LibAdwaita) and customization, workflow tweaks and removing features, then Zorin OS becomes a Windows OS emulation... What's the point of switching and having to learn a whole new operating system just to get the same results?

We migrants care because we seek to get away from the centralization, domination and control.

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I'm reluctant to offer a counterpoint here, because I DO generally agree with you, and certainly agree that GNOME isn't the best choice, but as a comparatively recent migrant, one who's been here JUST long enough to start solving some of my own problems while still far from what I'd consider intermediate, both of my two biggest reasons to get off of Windows are in your "other reasons that are not D.E. choice dependent."

The two things that most served to push me off of Windows at last were the incessant upsells (I don't consider this vendor lock in or being locked in by Microsoft as I COULD always refuse and use third parties, as I do with Proton Drive), and the data collection/privacy concerns.

I suspect, but cannot prove (and do not believe there's any means by which to prove) that most potential converts are primarily people who are sick of being harassed by Windows ("Back up your data on OneDrive! Log into a Microsoft account!"), people who are concerned about privacy, and people who aren't interested in replacing hardware to move to Windows 11.

If changing the UI for workflow purposes were a particularly big concern for a particularly large number of Windows users, I suspect that Stardock would be a much bigger company than it is. (Stardock is a company that primarily develops Windows UI modifications and secondarily publishes games.)

All that said: All I'm contesting is how much and how many Windows users care about your DE-dependent bullet points. I agree with you entirely on GNOME's failings, and though you and I favor different alternatives to GNOME, I agree that they're doing users a disservice offering only one DE. As I've mentioned in the past, Nobara is a one-man distribution and supports a customized KDE, stock KDE, and GNOME. I don't want to trivialize the work involved, but I do think that supporting at least ONE non-GNOME DE, even if it's not the one I want, would reflect well on them.

I can however think of two very legitimate reasons for a Windows-refugee distribution to eliminate choice, especially front loaded choice. Most people have never had to choose a UI for their operating system. Windows offers what it offers. MacOS offers what it offers. Android... okay, it's possible to change the launcher, but I'm the only person I know who ever bothered, and I haven't in years. Presenting someone who's got no familiarity with the concept of a desktop environment, may not know what "shell" means, and may never have been through an OS installation with "which UI do you want?" is one more source of friction in something that's already a very scary jump for most people anyway--and if that's ZorinGroup's reason, I respectfully disagree with their choice (both of DE and having only one DE), but I understand it.

The other is just that using GNOME is that much more that they can continue to just take in from their Ubuntu base without adding complexity to sources, build processes, and so on.

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How many may begin to care, once experiencing a freedom that they never had before?
Zorin OS is described as intended to ease Windows users into GnuLinux.
Not to be Windows OS on GnuLinux. It is a step forward, to teach... to enable that forward motion.

Now, the way I perceive that is as an introduction, rather than a replacement.

I am the second; I use Nova Launcher.

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That was my point about Stardock. A fair bit of that freedom exists, in terms of UI at least, as "after market parts." The success of Wallpaper Engine implies to me that people aren't necessarily opposed to the expenditure for it (Edit: I have been appalled by the lack of flexibility in the wallpaper management apps I've found for Linux, and would probably pay $50 for one that worked in GNOME and KDE with the flexibility I want :P), but are just not bothered enough to tinker. That especially goes for Stardock's Start11, which has been going since it was Start8--a Start menu replacement that undoes some of the mess the Start menu has become as well as adding substantial configurability.

Past conversations have implied we won't agree on the number of users who'd begin to care, as quite some time ago we discussed it, and while you said "people love a puzzle," I find most incurious and inert. Even those who are not frequently don't care enough to make changes. A close friend of mine writes very low level code for Linux as an employee of a defense contractor uses RHEL on the desktop at work, and runs Windows at home, because it's just not important enough to him to bother changing it. This is someone who's walked me though a few tasks in Linux, and has relied on me for Windows tech support. They know what their options are. They don't care, because their OS isn't what they use their computer for; the applications are. If the applications work, they just don't care enough to bother switching the OS the machine came with.

What I suspect might get someone interested in DEs isn't having options, but having a different one forced on them long enough that they had to learn it, but it'd have to be one they like a lot better. Otherwise, they'll either go back to Windows given the chance, or stick with the DE they were forced onto to avoid having to adapt all over again.

I am about 85% sure that's the one I used back in the day. What the heck, installing it. Samsung OneUI sucks.

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Neither of us are in any statistical position to say that people care or do not care.
It is an assumption made on limited data.

With that in mind, we can reach a reasonable assumption: Many people care. Many people do not care. I have encountered both...

When I migrated to GnuLinux, via Zorin OS, I did not care.
I just wanted it to work.

It was quite a long time in before I began caring, as I began exploring new horizons and expanding my boundaries. With this we see that what we care about and when we do are also not static.

If there are those who do not care, we do not need to be concerned. They are fine.
But if there are people who care, even if they are a minority, then we must give them attention, because an apathetic majority would not be a voice.

Yep.
Samsung Galaxy S-whatever....

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This, I think, may be your strongest point in the thread, though it's dependent on providing a sufficiently friendly, reliable default which Zorin is doing. And that does bring us back to providing options, though I'll point back to my remark about scaring first time users and suggest that a (Zorin modified) GNOME may be a decent starting point.

...yep, Nova's what I used back in the day, on my Samsung Galaxy S4 and a few other phones. Alas, my license for the paid version doesn't seem to apply to what's out now, but $5 isn't a lot. I'm glad you reminded me of it.

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There is also a point you made about StarDock.
It was popular for a long time. It has declined, as changes in Windows created more difficulty in getting StarDock Applications to work.
And yes, a quick check will show I am a member... on StarDock forums.

However...
By Customizing, I am not referring to themes. Themes are a part of customizing - appearance. But customizing is much, much more than theming the base appearance.

Summary

Interface Layout and Behavior

  • Rearranging panel positions, toolbars, or docks (e.g., GNOME extensions, KDE Plasma widgets).
  • Tiling vs floating window managers.
  • Custom hotkeys or gestures to trigger actions or navigate.
  • Changing how menus behave (e.g., context-sensitive menus, global menus, HUD-style interfaces).

2. Input and Interaction Models

  • Keyboard-driven environments (e.g., Vim keybindings, custom shortcuts, or layers like sxhkd).
  • Mouse behavior adjustments (acceleration curves, button remapping).
  • Touchscreen gestures or stylus input configurations.

3. Automation and Scripting

  • Setting up scripts or hooks for repetitive tasks (e.g., auto-mounting drives, setting environment variables).
  • Daemons or services that respond to events (e.g., udev rules, cron jobs, user-created shell scripts).
  • Custom startup routines or login/session initialization (.xinitrc, autostart, systemd user services).

4. Application Behavior and Integration

  • Configuring how applications interoperate (e.g., using external diff tools in git, setting default MIME handlers).
  • Pipe and dataflow customization (e.g., dmenu, rofi, or fzf integration for launching, searching, and filtering).
  • Window rules — defining how certain applications behave (e.g., always float, open on a specific workspace, use a specific size).

5. Notification and Feedback Systems

  • Adjusting notification style, urgency behavior, or placement.
  • Audio/visual feedback customization (e.g., visual bell, logging rather than notifying).
  • System monitors and dashboards (e.g., conky, custom polybar modules).

6. System-Level Behavior and Resource Management

  • Custom power profiles, CPU governor settings.
  • Application sandboxing, containerization, or isolation schemes (e.g., Flatpak overrides, Firejail profiles).
  • Tuning memory, caching, I/O behavior (e.g., zram, swappiness).

7. Development/Work Environment Specific Customizations

  • Dotfiles management and configuration across systems.
  • IDE/editor configurations beyond themes — linters, formatters, extensions, language servers.
  • Version control integrations and custom commit hooks.

As you can see, that is no small list. Accessibility, workflow and user defined persistent needs define this broad range.

Interesting... I have only ever used the free version... Are they pay only, now? (Mine still works.)

This is valid. It may scare some, just as it emboldens others. And Zorins version of Gnome is far more tolerable than others...
But it does not fit all users and having a good fit for more users makes more sense to me.