> IMHO you havent seen https://extensions.gnome.org/.

Of course I've seen https://extensions.gnome.org/ , Gnome is almost unusable without it. But Gnome extensions aren't supported by the core development team. They can (and do!) break from one release to another.

The barrier for "customizing things" is pretty high, too. E.g. if I want to change my window decorations in KDE, I download a new set of decorations and change it. If I want to change my window decorations in Gnome, I have to install gnome-tweak-tool and that-program-that-removes-the-bloody-client-decorations-crap and now most (but not) all of my apps are going to use the decorations I want. With some glitches. That's not ok.

> If you really want to see where Gnome is going, please do check out Fedora 22. That really is the showcase for cutting edge Gnome (unfortunately, its not Ubuntu/Debian)

I don't need to check out Fedora 22, I can already compile Gnome from their public repos. The showcase for cutting edge Gnome isn't too impressive; it can be boiled down to "we really like tablets and you're going to like them too because two releases from now all our applications are going to look like they're running on a tablet."

IMO downloading extensions to change your OS is not too different from downloading additional software to do the same [1][2].

[1] http://bahoom.com/hyperswitch

[2] http://superuser.com/questions/548146/change-command-tab-to-...

no - Gnome extensions are installed in 5 seconds from a browser. It is very different than the experience of traditional installing.

It is one of those It-Just-Works experiences.

Judging by Firefox Extensions: It just works until it breaks since extensions are usually not part of the core team's responsibility, and the APIs they use may change with every FF/Gnome release. The time it takes me to install something is really not that relevant, as long as it's <10min - what's relevant is the time it takes me to keep it running for the next 5 years at least.