I've also little doubt that Compiz/Beryl/Fusion envy was a major motivating factor for starting GNOME3 etc. Compiz gave desktop Linux a massive boost in popularity. Prior to this desktop rendering was primarily CPU bound and did not use compositing. If these projects were born from compiz-envy, then it was for the right reasons, and maybe they could've done a good job.
But then shortly after came the iPhone, and the developers felt like they had to copy design cues from Apple. It was no longer just about improving desktop rendering and enabling new kinds of visuals. They wanted a combined workspace for the desktop and phone, and they wanted a "pattern language" like Apple, so they limited the ways in which users could tinker with their tools, aiming towards uniformity. The GNOME3 designers/developers in particular had a very pretentious attitude and ignored complaints.
It might not have been so bad if they had succeeded right away, but the earliest releases of GNOME3 and KDE4 were heavily bug-ridden. The whole desktop would crash, or come out with strange glitches. Sometimes you would lose your desktop configuration and had to start from scratch. People who were using Linux for real work would have to revert back to something more stable, and the newer desktops had already left a sour taste.
But then shortly after came the iPhone, and the developers felt like they had to copy design cues from Apple. It was no longer just about improving desktop rendering and enabling new kinds of visuals. They wanted a combined workspace for the desktop and phone, and they wanted a "pattern language" like Apple, so they limited the ways in which users could tinker with their tools, aiming towards uniformity. The GNOME3 designers/developers in particular had a very pretentious attitude and ignored complaints.
It might not have been so bad if they had succeeded right away, but the earliest releases of GNOME3 and KDE4 were heavily bug-ridden. The whole desktop would crash, or come out with strange glitches. Sometimes you would lose your desktop configuration and had to start from scratch. People who were using Linux for real work would have to revert back to something more stable, and the newer desktops had already left a sour taste.
None of this had anything to do with Microsoft.