Aside from being based on Fedora 39 now, KDE is now the official desktop environment replacing GNOME. The reasons why are in the article.
The GNOME version of Nobara still exists, but it's going to be the vanilla version shipped without any extensions (probably because many of them broke after moving to Fedora 39)
As I understand it, that's not even needed because the current DE choice is being preserved at an upgrade. The only thing that needs manual tweaking is reinstalling the extensions from the Gnome website which isn't really an issue at all.
While I don't know the term hissy fit, switching distributions just because the default of a user-changeable setting is different is definitively a bit over the top.
They still have a gnome ISO, but you're going to throw it out because it isnt the "official" version. That sounds like a hissy fit.
The non-official KDE previous version was fine, since the point of the distro is the backend optimizations for gaming and editing. Its not what DE leads point since you can add whatever Fedora has in the repos, which is pretty much everything.
Speaking on Bazzite, KDE is our default to match SteamOS, but we put more effort into the GNOME release if anything due to us trying to maintain feature parity with Valve's KDE, including being able to right click and add to steam, use the desktop nested, enable VRR, add custom themes based on the ones Valve shipped, and add the steam deck wallpapers ported to GNOME.
That being said, GE's points about GNOME are very real, and they have a lot of catching to do in regards to gaming. KDE has DRM Leasing, VRR and HDR right now.
But why? Not being the default doesn't mean that Gnome isn't available. As both are Fedora derivatives, both should have good Gnome support inherited from Fedora anyway. As the changelog says, only a handful of Gnome Shell extensions will no longer be provided in the Nobara repository but instaling them manually from extensions.gnome.org is a breeze.
I've always experienced weird annoying bugs, and I much prefer the UX and minimalism of gnome. It's better for productivity. I don't just use my desktop for gaming.
This is my complaint as well. KDE certainly has advantages and neat design ideas, but I always come across some major bugs that make my device unusable.
Definitely not saying GNOME doesn’t have bugs as well though.
Well, Nobara is a gaming-oriented distribution and as the changelog outlines, does Plasma currently offer technological benefits. As is the case with everything, this isn't set in stone and might change at some point but right now the main target audience for paid development work for Gnome are corporate users where for Plasma it's being Desktop Mode for Steam Deck.