genuinely curious : In general, do we see a lot of desktop app developers coming from the web world on Linux ? I'm pretty sure that is not the case in the Windows world. In fact, more often than not I have seen die hard fanatics ("interpreted languages sucks for desktop apps!!" vs "C++ sucks") on both sides unwilling to cross over.
I am not sure these developers would come onboard with knowledge of javascript - so the biggest advantage (ubiquity) is nullified.
I am not sure which developers is Gnome targeting by choosing javascript. At this point in the evolution of OSes, its all about the app marketplace.
How JavaScript fits in this picture, however, is still beyond me.
I'm finding it hard to believe that you can woo quality desktop app developers using javascript.
Otherwise, I'd call the Free Software Movement a pretty neat ecosystem :P I'm sure at least some people will agree :)
By what numbers? Number of projects using the language? Number of lines of code in the wild in that language? Number of users using apps written in the language? Because I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I seriously doubt that that's correct. Firefox, Chrome, iTunes, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Excel, Word, Powerpoint... None of these apps are written in C#. The most popular app dev language, period, is C++. (Maker help us all.)