Gnome happened because KDE, older, was based on Qt which was non free so the GNU project pushed for an actually free desktop. Actually, the GNU project followed two strategies at the same time: it pushed Gnome given Qt was not free, and pushed for Qt to be free [edit: initially by initiating a free replacement for Qt, Harmony] [1]. It succeeded in both. If Qt had been free from the start, maybe we wouldn't have Gnome at all.
I think why GNOME eventually became more widespread than KDE with most major distros adopting it instead of KDE in recent years (at some point RHEL was KDE-based, SUSE always was, we had Mandrake too) is another question.
I think why GNOME eventually became more widespread than KDE with most major distros adopting it instead of KDE in recent years (at some point RHEL was KDE-based, SUSE always was, we had Mandrake too) is another question.
[1] https://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/stallman-on-qt-the-gpl-...