People should love (or hate) Linux for what it is, a fragmented mess for the average end user that is imminently hackable and customizable to fill any possible role by experienced users who are willing to put in the time and effort.
But given that amount of flexibility you would think that somebody would have managed to put together a release that wasn't
a fragmented mess, but was pretty usable immediately after installation, and I'd argue that Ubuntu has done that, followed closely by Linux Mint.
As to the reasons that Linux is still not that popular on the desktop, I can't guess, but a lack of top line user applications might
be part of the reason. I notice that two of the best user applications on Linux are browsers not developed exclusively for Linux - Firefox and Chrome.
When Apple first released OS X they had a real mountain to climb to get the OS to a point where it was generally usable, and they
focused on:
iTunes
A web browser! - Omni had the only usable OSX Web browser for a long while
iPhoto
iMovie
The Finder
Mail
Desktop search
And they had the advantage that MS had developed Office for OS X as well.
If a main distro did the same, then maybe they could move the desktop share a few % higher.
I don't think the kind of applications he's talking about require anything like that amount of data, or anything like the cost
of supporting that kind of infrastructure.
There are many many small businesses that use and generate data on a daily basis. They don't need and cannot
afford a big development team every time they need some small form to capture bits of data, or to generate a report.
Microsoft developed Access exactly for these people, and they had that as a product long before SQL Server came out (I remember
using Access on Windows 3.11).
At the moment Linux really does not have many RAD tools to support these kind of people, and it's exactly these kind of businesses that
would turn to Linux to help them save money.
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I think you got that the wrong around buddy! Which is quite typical of Emacs users I'm led to understand
People should love (or hate) Linux for what it is, a fragmented mess for the average end user that is imminently hackable and customizable to fill any possible role by experienced users who are willing to put in the time and effort.
But given that amount of flexibility you would think that somebody would have managed to put together a release that wasn't a fragmented mess, but was pretty usable immediately after installation, and I'd argue that Ubuntu has done that, followed closely by Linux Mint.
As to the reasons that Linux is still not that popular on the desktop, I can't guess, but a lack of top line user applications might be part of the reason. I notice that two of the best user applications on Linux are browsers not developed exclusively for Linux - Firefox and Chrome.
When Apple first released OS X they had a real mountain to climb to get the OS to a point where it was generally usable, and they focused on:
And they had the advantage that MS had developed Office for OS X as well.
If a main distro did the same, then maybe they could move the desktop share a few % higher.
I don't think the kind of applications he's talking about require anything like that amount of data, or anything like the cost of supporting that kind of infrastructure. There are many many small businesses that use and generate data on a daily basis. They don't need and cannot afford a big development team every time they need some small form to capture bits of data, or to generate a report. Microsoft developed Access exactly for these people, and they had that as a product long before SQL Server came out (I remember using Access on Windows 3.11). At the moment Linux really does not have many RAD tools to support these kind of people, and it's exactly these kind of businesses that would turn to Linux to help them save money.