KDE Frameworks 5 Tech Preview
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I used to be a KDE user, up until about 4.2 (I even used 4.0), but after that I stopped and switched to a lightweight window manager. Most linux desktop users that I interact with often have done the same, more or less at the same time. There is probably some selection bias going on here or something, but from my perspective it seems like the linux desktop zeitgeist is moving towards barebones tiling window managers, rather than traditional desktop environments, perhaps as the dream of "Linux for the proverbial grandmother" is slowly abandoned (or perhaps as the idea of the native GUI application dies, in favor of browsers (which provide the same facilities regardless of your WM/DE) and terminals).
I agree with your assessment that everything being in the browser now is probably amongst the primary causes for it. As a developer, everything I do is either in a terminal or in a browser; and tiling managers are just much better and efficient for that user persona. And if you're a nerd but still want to use a floating wm (why would you!?), then there's almost no reason to use Gnome/KDE over a more lightweight alternative.
The users who (debatably) benefit from non-tiling WMs (the computer using grandpa, but also designers, 3D modelers, engineers who work using CAD programs, accountants, etc. etc. etc.) are all on Windows/OSX anyway, with little reason to move to Linux ever (and when they do use Linux, for example to process bigdata®, they do so over SSH on EC2 anyway).
So what's the future for Gnome/KDE? Obviously they'll always be there for people who are first discovering Linux and need something familiar to navigate around; but I doubt they'll ever have the popularity they had in the early 2000s.
I for one am looking forward to a year 2030 where nerds still use tiling window managers and "ugly" terminals :)
Addendum: I guess SteamOS could sway a lot of gamers towards Linux; and that uses Gnome. So who knows, maybe the Gnome community can get a boost from that.
Since I use tmux heavily and am often found browsing the net in lynx (or just curl when I'm looking for something specific), I could get away without Xorg completely if I had to. But KDE just seems to compliment my workflow nicely.
Everyone is different though. I wouldn't ever push my preferred WM/DE's onto anyone else any more than I'd expect to like whatever set up they've fallen in love for.
(i'm writing a toy WM + DE stuff in my free time, and am curious to hear about all of that :)
Some stuff that I like about KDE4 are (in no particular order):
o Dolphin - it's a fantastic file manager which has all the features you'd expect from a powerful modern file manager yet in a clean and uncluttered interface. Yet everything is easy locate and enable as and when I need
o Unified / Integrated components - I can be running Dolphin and hit [F4] and a Konsole terminal pane will attach to the bottom of the file manager; already cd'ed to the directory I'm browsing. And as it's KDE Konsole, all of my profiles et al from the standalone terminal emulator will be available.
o Taskbar - while I might dislike Windows as an OS (personal preference; not trying to start a flamewar), I do think the taskbar was a stroke of genius. The Windows taskbar peaked at Windows 2000 / XP (minus the themes). The KDE taskbar has the same clean layout that I liked from Windows 2000.
o KWin Compositing - I used to dislike KWin and much prefer Compiz, and in many ways Compiz is still probably preferable. But these days KWin is actually pretty decent on it's own; which is handy because I don't have a whole lot of time to spend making a computer look pretty. So it's nice to have an "out of the box" solution that comes with KDE4 rather than having to install lots of additional glitter manually.
o Krunner - [F2] then type any application or document name and it pops up. Hugely convenient.
o Configuration - I work as a Linux and UNIX systems administrator by trade, so sometimes I just can't be bothered to configure things the "proper" way if I just need to quickly add a printer to CUPS (for example). KDE comes with some pretty decent control panel applets for desktop administration. Though I really dislike how they've grouped the items in System Settings - which makes it just as counter intuitive to find items as it is in Windows Control Panel when you're unfamiliar with Windows.
o Snap Regions - I know most WMs support that these days, but it was less common when that feature was released in KDE4.0 (or at least that's what I seem to recall. I might be wrong about that).
o Sane defaults - for the most part, I find I don't have to do much to make KDE usable.
I know most of what I've described can be done in other WM/DEs, but I've always just felt at home in KDE. Maybe part of it is just because I've been using it for so many years on so many different distros (SuSE, Arch, Mandrake, Slackware, etc) or maybe it's because many of the distros I've ran on my desktop have been KDE-centric (eg SuSE, Slackware) or at last been one of the few to do decent packages for KDE (I'm still not convinced KDE4 on Kubuntu isn't total garbage where as Arch seems to suit KDE well). But KDE just feels like home.
The only other environment I've felt comfortable in was Awesome, which, weirdly, is the polar opposite of KDE. Most of the other DE's look pretty but I'm quickly bored of them (which I'm guessing is exactly how you and many others feel about KDE4?)
As for if I discovered Linux today; who knows what I'd be using. Probably Awesome because I'd want to think of myself as "l33t".
Good luck with your DE/WM project by the way. That's quite a daunting project you've taken on - but I can imagine it'll be great fun too.
* Better file management. Dolphin (modern UI), Konqueror (Windows Explorer style ui complete with web browser) and Komander (two pane midnight commander style gui) are all very good. Even the file open/save dialog is more useful than other DEs.
* KIO allows you to access pretty much everything local or remote from the file manager or file dialog. Just use a url like ssh://user:pass@someplace.biz. Supported protocols include ssh, ftp, webdav, smb, imap and a bunch more I use less often.
* Usable control panel that actually doesn't hide settings from you. You can change pretty much everything.
* Scriptable alerts and extensible context menus. If you don't like it you can change it.
It's not the job of KDE to do AwesomeWM better though. I mean, you mention as much but that's the real reason. If people wanted barebones tiling WM they'd use that. If they want GNOME, they'd use that, etc.
And while we at KDE are certainly striving as always to make the desktop as efficient as possible (since a featureful desktop should not require massive resources), having a comprehensive desktop experience is the mission, not a zeitgeist-compliant KWin. ;)
IMHO the KDE contributor community is even more valuable than the software at this point, which is all the more impressive given how anarchical it all really is. There's no Linux kernel-style "hierarchical command-and-control" development framework, no major corporate sponsors, and yet things still get done which is a testament to the skill and "give-a-shit".
Google is a major corporate sponsor of KDE.
KDE3 did a really good job of feeling more or less like WinXP, with some cool WM features (little things like snapping a window to the edge of the screen, or being able to make it stay on top of other windows). I loved it. KDE4 is doing its own thing, and not particularly well.
Used to love Amarok too, which got ruined in the transition to Qt4, losing tons of features. Things might be better now, but we're talking about years spent in an awful transitional period. It's a huge self-inflicted wound for KDE.
Looking forward to see KDE5 once it's released/stable.
What are you talking about? They are modularizing KDElibs into things that can be run outside of KDE. This is a huge benefit for anyone who wants to use KDE tools outside of KDE, which we need these days now that GTK+ dropping the ball by focusing on GNOME. LXDE is merging with RazorQt instead of using GTK+3 for this reason: http://blog.lxde.org/?p=1013
If I recall, KDE seemed odd because it was developed by a commercial entity. Gnome was developed by individual _hackers_. Funny, though, since RH was commercializing Linux at the time. I was happy to buy the box since downloading over dial up seemed impossible.
I'm sure my history is off, but KDE is a good memory.
My favorite memory from that era was the bumper sticker I got at the Raleigh Linux convention:
"In a world without fences, who needs Gates?"
I have always sided with C++ in the usual C vs C++ wars, since I know the language (1993).
My first Linux distribution was Slackware 2.0 back in 1995, before GNOME or KDE existed and many used twm as their window manager.
Having been part of the gtkmm mailing list for a while, mainly due to my dislike on those days of Qt using moc, I can tell there were quite some heated discussions in the usual C vs C++ style.
So C guys would side with GTK, C++ with Qt and not many in the GTK world cared about us in gtkmm.