Let's step to the side and consider this from a different angle: Imagine that someone made Linus' perfect desktop environment. Something that satisfied him entirely and which he could happily talk about whenever he felt like it. Would that environment be interesting and useful for the general public, or would it be something great for kernel developers and grumpy-heads like Linus?
I don't care about the general public. I'm not part of it (regarding Desktop Environments) nor do I develop DEs for them. I'm a developer who actually likes some of the same tools as Linus does, including those he developed (Git), so yes, he's position is potentially useful to me.
This idea that software isn't useful unless my mother can use it is a really annoying meme. It's like farmers claiming that reviews on combine harvesters aren't useful because they can't help uncle Tom harvest the tomatoes in his garden.
I don't care about the general public. I'm not part of it (regarding Desktop Environments) nor do I develop DEs for them. I'm a developer who actually likes some of the same tools as Linus does, including those he developed (Git), so yes, he's position is potentially useful to me.
This idea that software isn't useful unless my mother can use it is a really annoying meme. It's like farmers claiming that reviews on combine harvesters aren't useful because they can't help uncle Tom harvest the tomatoes in his garden.