It bothers me a bit, though. Developing for desktop Linux is still a pain in the ass, and I really wish the Linux community had agreed on One Desktop Framework To Rule Them All, and I think GNUStep could have been that framework if the community had been willing to embrace it.
I dunno if it was a joke or not, but I can confirm that I used Windowmaker as my daily driver from around 2004-ish to 2019-ish.[1]
The only reason I switched, and did not switch back, is due wanting my virtual desktops to be arranged in a 3x3 grid, and Windowmaker did not have that, nor was it on any roadmap.
The thing I miss about my Windowmaker days is how focused it let me be - the entire screen was devoted to a window (or multiple windows); nothing crying out for attention in some bar at the bottom of the screen.
Should I get a few free moments in the near future, I'm tempted to actually add that feature in.
All the other things (taskbar, wifi/sound/etc controls in the taskbar) I can either do without (i.e. I don't need it if I have a decent launcher that is bound to a shortcut), or I can use an existing dockapp.
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[1] Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W_4fH_ccQE
They are extremely minimal and really get out of your way. I had to write my own service to power the info on the Sway bar [1] because the entire thing is so minimal.
For me, I have title bars in windows disabled, and the gap between different windows is literally 1 pixel.
[1] First version: https://github.com/tombert/swanbar Rust rewrite: https://github.com/tombert/rs-swanbar
Actually, it has its own toolkit named WINGs. Which stands for WINGs is not GNUstep ;)