>Controversially I believe the most viable future Linux desktop is likely to be based on the Android stack, especially the app packaging, but with the entire “java” layer removed.
What would replace all the APIs provided by the Java layer? Compared to what you find in traditional Linux desktops, the Java APIs are
1) comprehensive, providing a one-stop shop for basically all core app functionality; desktop Linux has no equivalent of the Android SDK or the Windows API.
2) versioned, with strong backward compatibility.
Linux desktops have no well-defined "minimum API version" that developers can target like they can on Android.
For your point 2, I had to stop them from throwing that out of the window all the way back circa 2.3.
The key problem with desktop Linux is the entire distro concept. Just have the kernel, some services (the android ones like binder, surfaceflinger etc) and go from there. Iirc that isn’t far from what firefox os was, only they insisted on everything being browser based.
The Java API on android is thinner than it looks, and contains most of the serious problems, such as the entire UI stack. Now that Swift has grown static Linux support that would probably make most sense as the first class target for API consumption.
> Linux desktops have no well-defined "minimum API version" that developers can target like they can on Android.
Of course they do: "Ubuntu 16.04+", " Debian 11+", "RHEL-like 8+". If you can use a single distro (which you're proposing anyways with Android), it's not hard. Sadly LSB didn't really work out so you don't have a more portable solution, but that just means that we're stuck with the status quo and not better.
What would replace all the APIs provided by the Java layer? Compared to what you find in traditional Linux desktops, the Java APIs are
1) comprehensive, providing a one-stop shop for basically all core app functionality; desktop Linux has no equivalent of the Android SDK or the Windows API.
2) versioned, with strong backward compatibility.
Linux desktops have no well-defined "minimum API version" that developers can target like they can on Android.