| The author is right mostly, the problem is friction and market dynamics. Adding software in a given linux distro is too nerdy. If you don't have an "app store" like gui, you've already lost most users. Command line = friction for most users, even a lot of developers who grew up with windows. As a linux nerd, I'm fine with command line + synaptic, but look at how well people have used the iTunes store, Amazon store, Google Play, etc... All of those have much less friction to find and download the right software than most linux distro's have. Ubuntu's market is close but... WHERE IS THE NON FREE SOFTWARE?!! If linux wants to do well for humans, paid, proprietary software NEEDS to exist on the platform. Ubuntu Software Center comes close, but it still kind of sucks. Also, as a dev, it wasn't until VERY recently that you could even sign up to publish an app that was commercial in nature. It is hard to build a real marketplace when you're asking developers to give away all their work for free so that you can sell more operating systems (or support contracts) without the software dev seeing a dime. As a software developer I can't feed my kids with free downloads on an open source operating system used by people who don't like paying for software. Make it easy for devs to build software that people will pay for, then get operating system users who will buy that software for real money and you'll have fixed the Linux Desktop problem. |