It's not meant to ever be resolved. The debate spurs competition and
the competition results in better desktop environments. Better desktop
environments result in better operating systems. The Gnome vs KDE
battle is smoke & mirrors. They are both highly capable and there are
many good distros out there that use them both.

The real challenge these days is in the area of light distros and
lighter applications for those distros. Gnome and KDE are not even
going to be in that discussion. With a global depression looming,
people are going to be trying to keep older and older machines on line
for a longer time. The biggest challenge will be to create distros to
keep the older boxes up and running as best as possible. Right now only
one distro stands out for older boxes and that is Mepis AntiX. A few
more contenders making serious distros for older machines will not only
be good for the older machines, but much of what comes from such a
competition would be useful in larger, heavier distros on newer machines.

I'm looking forward to seeing progress in the refining of Fluxbox,
IceWM, XFCE and LXDE into mainstream user friendly desktop environments.