I have the choice to not hire if you worked for SCO, not hire you if you are ugly, and not hire you if you are overweight.
Coincidentally, the city of Santa Cruz, California, home of SCO and famous for its freakishly liberal policies, is the one place on earth this is not true. The city council passed a law a few years back banning discrimination on the basis of "appearance", which includes failing to employ someone because he is "ugly" or "overweight".
We should not try to attract Windows users to Linux/GNU because Microsoft is evil and should be destroyed. Market share itself should not be the goal, as has been pointed out above. We should try to attract Windows users because the larger the user base for Linux, more software development resources would be put towards developing for Linux systems, and the better the platform itself will become.
Think for a minute about the applications that are available for Linux machines. The software development and IT management tools are as good or better than anything on any other platform. Why? Because there is a solid base of Linux users who are software developers and IT personnel. Because there is a large group of people who will be served by such applications, developers (both open source and proprietary -- nobody wants to make software that no one will use) are encouraged to work along those lines. By contrast, basic "end user" apps like web browsers, office software, games, and other more specialized applications are generally either nonexistent on Linux or weak compared to what is available on other platforms. If there were more users who needed these kinds of apps, more effort would be made to create them or improve the existing software, thus making the platform as a whole more attractive for everybody.
I doubt there are many who would argue the author's point that there is a lack of a "standard" or "default" window system, both in terms of API and end-user interface, and that is holding Linux back from appealing to the typical Windows user. Deciding on a standard, say KDE, would not restrict those who want to use GNOME from using GNOME, any more than Windows standards prevent people from using Linux. Therefore, it seems like an obvious choice. The bottom line is that attracting Windows users should be an important goal for Linux because that will lead to improvements in the platform itself.
Deciding on what the standard should be or even who should set the standard is a much more challenging problem.
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Coincidentally, the city of Santa Cruz, California, home of SCO and famous for its freakishly liberal policies, is the one place on earth this is not true. The city council passed a law a few years back banning discrimination on the basis of "appearance", which includes failing to employ someone because he is "ugly" or "overweight".
Think for a minute about the applications that are available for Linux machines. The software development and IT management tools are as good or better than anything on any other platform. Why? Because there is a solid base of Linux users who are software developers and IT personnel. Because there is a large group of people who will be served by such applications, developers (both open source and proprietary -- nobody wants to make software that no one will use) are encouraged to work along those lines. By contrast, basic "end user" apps like web browsers, office software, games, and other more specialized applications are generally either nonexistent on Linux or weak compared to what is available on other platforms. If there were more users who needed these kinds of apps, more effort would be made to create them or improve the existing software, thus making the platform as a whole more attractive for everybody.
I doubt there are many who would argue the author's point that there is a lack of a "standard" or "default" window system, both in terms of API and end-user interface, and that is holding Linux back from appealing to the typical Windows user. Deciding on a standard, say KDE, would not restrict those who want to use GNOME from using GNOME, any more than Windows standards prevent people from using Linux. Therefore, it seems like an obvious choice. The bottom line is that attracting Windows users should be an important goal for Linux because that will lead to improvements in the platform itself.
Deciding on what the standard should be or even who should set the standard is a much more challenging problem.