– Many factions—e.g. many Linux distributions & desktops. Because OSS attracts people that want to write their own software so that it exactly matches their needs(?)
– UIs seem often less polished. Because OSS has more programmers than UI designers(?)
Other than that: It’s ironic how much open source helps companies—especially small ones. IIRC, the first internet boom would not have been possible without open source projects such as Apache.
@rauschma polished UI has more programmers than designers, difference is they follow a process that OSS won't tolerate (starting with product management)
@rauschma by volume of users it already does because the majority of OSS comes from companies (eg iPhone/Mac both use Darwin)
by attention span it doesn't and it never will because of the principle"free as in free of any project manager involvement” and (like it or not) that's never going to change
Typical comment in Linux forums 😀: The hardware is really nice—apart from the Wifi not working yet.
(Note that I’m saying this as someone who really likes Linux. I also like macOS because it’s still Unix and many things are easier. But it also locks you into Apple’s ecosystem—whose downsides become increasingly difficult to ignore.)
@rauschma I doubt that's the correct view of Linux. It corresponds to a situation where you are a geek and want to run a system somewhere where the system wasn't originally (linux on a windows laptop, windows XP on modern hardware, windows on a macbook air, ...).
As “regular” user, you typically buy the whole combo os+hardware and this is also possible with linux thanks to @tuxedocomputers, @slimbook, @system76, ….
The fact that you can run linux “everywhere” is just another advantage of it.
– If you use the officially supported distro, you’ll be fine.
– OTOH, I can’t help wonder where Linux would be if there were fewer distros. This page alone mentions several of them: Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch Linux, Manjaro XFCE, Linux Mint
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