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I thought this interview with Francis Irving of Redecentralize.org said a lot about the benefits of a decentralized internet.

We should have been making eCommerce protocols, rather than implementing everything over HTTP and HTML.

Now that I have your attention... no, pretty much just porn, and I can't believe I'm among the first to say it. The pornography industry drive media technology more than anyone wants to admit; if you could get the boilerplate engines that drive thousands of porn site to support HTML5 video, you'd be within striking distance of the death of Flash. (Flash games are still a problem.. but Flash games are by-and-large idiotic.)

ps. TRWTF is that the previous post on the OP's blog got no /. mention.. this is actually interesting stuff: using relativity to encrypt data

Volunteers view their time as hobby-time, which means they want to work on what interests them.

Paid employees do that, and also the un-interesting stuff, like documentation, drivers, non-critical bug-fixes, interface standardization and so forth.

If you want to fix Linux on the desktop, imitate those who are succeeding (Microsoft and Apple): be customer-driven, not developer-driven.

Work on what the customers need. To do that, you may need to make the volunteer community a paid one, or at least one where there are consequences for not doing what is necessary, and leaders to implement those strategies.

Heresy, I know. But heresy that works, and would have avoided the absence of market share that Linux desktop solutions now experience.

For a little bit of background:

• "Why Linux failed to take over desktop computing," Houston 2600

You may not like what you hear, but these are working solutions:

• Volunteer. Find an organization that does something useful. Warning: true loony causes attract loony people, so I'd stick to the mainstream. Saving baby turtles, planting trees, recycling, etc. help.
• Take classes. Yoga is great for meeting ladies, but there's a dozen billion things you can learn. Join an orchestra and you'll meet a ton of people.
• 2600. Geeks gather and bring normals.
• Church. Add the religious or sacramental activity of your choice, even an atheistic one, as long as it is organized and draws in people.
• Join activity groups. A bike riding group, a poker playing club, an informal party every Thursday night, all good.
• Network. If you meet someone at work who has a brain, spend time with them. They know other good people.

Finally, and I guess this goes without saying, but try finding places where people you think are interesting show up. Ask people you know what they do with their time. They'll probably be glad to tell you.

Humans are no more a mystery than Linux, but there's a similar amount of learning. Luckily, you don't need to learn how to rebuild human kernels, just how to set up the network. Be brave. You have nothing to lose but your solitude.