Here is my .01 cents...
I agree with what Jason says for the most part, the only thing to bear
in mind is thatif we assume those ideas to be true we are operating under
the premise that there will be no "surprises". By surprises I mean you
never know when someone out there will come up with some off the wall idea
that will shake up the foundations of our best premonitions.
For example, we are operating under the assumption that Linux is too
advanced for the end user. I agree with this. But what if a company were
to come along and change that fact? Produce a distribution that is
absolutely dummy proof. Stripping away 95% of the functionality that comes
with most Linux distributions would make it easy for people who are
completely computer illiterate to install and run. Call it "Soft
Linux". There is no LILO dual booting setup. When you go to install it the
system automatically deletes all existing partitions. :-) It would be
Linux with training wheels. Have one desktop installation option, and
basically hardly no functions that can confuse even my own grandmother. A
big pink button that says START and STOP to control system
startup/shutdown...etc. (you get the idea). Look how much popularity MS
gained with this approach. Then my grandma would be able to use Linux, and
it would gain more popularity in the market, while the traditional distros
would be for more advanced installs such as those things required of a
server and whatnot. If people are willing to put up with a brain dead OS
like windoze, they would like a distro of Linux for themselves even more
since they could download it for free.
- Jamie
--
"What's your excuse for getting through life unscathed?" --Anonymous