[Goladus]

Open-sourceness isn't an unfriendly feature by any measure, and the features I list are useful whether on a server or a desktop, that's the point. Man pages might be the only thing in that list that can genuinely be considered unfriendly, and that's still highly subjective. In contrast, license keys and online software registration are inherently unfriendly features. No subjectivity is required.

I didn't make that point explicit only because I didn't want to seem too confrontational, as j_baker's comment was clearly well-intentioned.

> Perhaps you need to reacquaint yourself with Joe.

I know lots of Windows users. They're each very different, but not stupid and frequently surprise condescending nerds with their capacity to figure things out. The most technophobic person I know, someone who uses their home computer ONLY to browse the web and check email (who probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between windows XP and gnome) once ranted to me for several months about various productivity hits caused by their office's migration from a terminal-based mainframe system to windows NT workstations. Most windows and mac users I know are particularly proficient with several applications. Whether it's Photoshop or Excel or Matlab or Finale or Final Cut Pro or Revit or ProTools or LaTeX, using the software effectively typically requires a lot more technical knowledge than "Joe Average User" requires to browse the web and check his email.

The original linked article covers this issue effectively in section #5, The myth of "user-friendly"