I love my GNOME developer friends but I do actually firmly believe this. Theming is accessibility, and any desktop environment not embracing it is shooting itself in the foot (heh). It is impossible to accommodate every user's colour, iconography, etc. needs, and that's where theming comes in.
I would not be able to use GNOME without being able to change its icon set. I am thankful that hasn't been removed yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if they'd like to.
I think there's a deeper critique. Which is that the Gnome design philosophy conflicts with the necessity of community building and the core concept of play.
It is right that Gnome be allowed to decide what it is that they ship. To design things which are professional, and ux tested.
But its also true that without the flexibility to create sandboxes where people can play *safely*; we limit community growth, skills growth as well as future design possibilities.
@doctormo @thomholwerda Right, I didn't mean to come off as snarky, it was a genuine question more aimed at the earlier post that "theming is accessibility", but I have the sense that iOS is not themable but also is very accessible. I'm wondering if that impression is wrong, or if there are different paths to accessibility?
@mpanhans @thomholwerda
I would consider iOS not a Free Software community.
We are not Apple in some extremely important and human level aspects.