14 DAY TRIAL // Developers from the Debian project have been trying to decide for quite a while whether to implement Xfce, GNOME, or a few other DEs by default, and it looks like GNOME has won, at least for the time being.
We wrote a couple of days ago that the GNOME 3.14 packages were being uploaded to the repositories for Debian Testing or Debian 8 "Jessie," which was a nice surprise. Usually, GNOME maintainers are not all that quick to add the latest packages for any kind of software, let alone a desktop environment.
As it turns out, the debate about the default desktop that will be implemented in the upcoming Debian 8 release has been raging on, although that word might be a little bit too strong. In any case, some of the developers wanted Xfce, others wanted GNOME, and it looks like MATE was also in the cards.
GNOME will be default in Debian 8 "Jessie," most likely
We say most likely because an agreement hasn't been quite reached yet, but it looks like GNOME is way ahead of everyone else. Debian maintainer and developer Joey Hess explains why this is happening.
"Based on preliminary results from https://wiki.debian.org/DebianDesktop/Requalification/Jessie Some desired data is not yet available, but at this point I'm around 80% sure that gnome is coming out ahead in the process. This is particularly based on accessibility and to some extent systemd integration. Accessibility: Gnome and Mate are ahead by a large margin. Some of the other desktops have had their accessability integration in Debian improved, partly driven by this process, but still need significant upstream work."
"Systemd/etc integration: Xfce, Mate, etc are stuck paying catch-up to ongoing changes in this area. There will be time to hopefully iron these issues out during the freeze once the tech stack stops changing out from under them, so this is not a complete blocker for those desktops, but going by the current status, Gnome is ahead," adds Joey Hess.
The developer says in the email that the Debian GNOME team has made a really passionate case for their maintained project and that the Debian Xfce team was actually ambivalent about having the desktop as default.
In any case, Debian 8 "Jessie" doesn't have a launch date set yet and there is no indication when it might get released. On the other hand, GNOME 3.14 is out today (maybe it will have already launched by the time you read the news) and it will soon be ready for testing in Debian.
We should also thank Jordi Mallach, one of the maintainers of the GNOME packages in Debian, for reaching out and pointing us in the right direction.