Not sure if I'm going to get downvoted for my dislike of the fragmentation, but I've been always wondering what if all the efforts could be somehow combined to make a really great one...
There are many, sometimes very different measures of what "a great one" does and would mean for an OS, as I'm sure you know. And therein lies the beauty of having rich diversity to choose from.
I can sympathize with the irritation of seeing duplication of effort. But when that irritation pushes a mind toward the tempting presupposition of some single measure of goodness which could have been a guiding light the whole time, paring away effort duplication and dead-ends... well, the thinking has gone a bit absurd.
There are many regions of possible-OS space, not everyone needs or wants to be in the same one.
