Why are so many people constantly trying to claim Gnome is better than KDE or KDE is better than Gnome? If you ask me I'd say they're about equal and personal preference is where it all lies. Some people prefer Gnome and others KDE, I'm one who prefers Gnome but has no problem using KDE either if I need to.

For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, Linux has the ability to use multiple desktop environments which is pretty much the UI of your operating system where you can browse for files, run applications, etc. There are many different environments with the two big ones being Gnome and KDE. There is often the talk of which one is "better" but I almost seem to be the odd one out who really doesn't seem to see either as "better" than the other.

I mean if you look at it from a different view, both Gnome and KDE are both completely open, the source code is available and you can develop for either one relatively easily. Both can be installed on any distribution albeit some distros don't come with the choice to install one or both making it a bit more difficult to do especially for the novice user, but at the same time, it can be done.

The only argument I can see for this argument is to set more of a standard for Linux desktop environments, but at the same time, the customization for me is one of Linux's greatest selling points, the ability to use whatever desktop environment and software you want. If you look at both OS X and Windows, while there are some alternatives to many applications, for some apps there are no alternatives and outside theming, you're stuck with one desktop. So while one desktop environment as "standard" for Linux would provide a base, you'd lose a fair amount in the process.

While personally I have nothing against any of the desktop environments, I think it all comes down to personal preference and the "desktop environment war" is kinda silly. In the end I think the "war" would be better fought bettering Linux and open source software. Just a thought.