This article reads like troll bait. Should this be on Hacker News? The author (whoever it is) talks more about the problems with free software rather than the "two major problems that Linux faces concerning its spread on the desktop". The rant itself seems a bit too incoherent.

> Desktop-Users need commercial applications...

Umm... no. Different users have different needs. The vast amount of free software available should be able to cover most of this need. For example, the default Ubuntu installation includes an Office Suite, a browser, media players, and more. OpenOffice is free. Firefox is free. MPlayer is free. If these applications are free and people use them, why would you need their commercial counter-parts?

> The extra ten percent of features that makes an app usable for your average Desktop-User are the 10% that every developer hates; those features are hard and boring to develop, and implementing them is just no fun. You need to pay developers to implement them.

This is simply not true! Even though many projects have "hard and boring parts to develop", that doesn't mean that a programmer would absolutely refuse to code those parts without compensation. For example, the Linux kernel is made from a "labor of love". People wanted to actually develop this, for free even! I am sure that there are many parts in the kernel that have "hard and boring parts", but that doesn't mean that programmers will not do it without pay.

> PE calibre software will NOT be created by the community. It just takes TOO much manpower, TOO much work. No one is coding that in his spare-time.

GIMP, as the author stated before, is an alternative. The author dismisses GIMP as inferior without stating why. GIMP is a perfectly decent alternative for people who don't want to shell out money for Photoshop.

More generally to the author's last argument, lots of things require a lot of manpower and work. Just because it is hard work does not necessarily mean that no one will do it. Some people might have a surprising amount of determination.

> This kind of software will also not be created by an open-source company. There is no business-model that would supports the effort. Just imagine if Adobe released PE as open-source - you think that people would still shell out 70€ for a boxed-version? Nope, people would just copy it. There are some exceptions. For example, Mozilla receives their money from Google not from their users.

First off: yes, it has! How has the open source community survived so long? Secondly, not everything must be a business. Peope do create things out of pure volition.

Thirdly, the real world isn't zero-sum. For every gain, there is not an equal loss. If Adobe open-sources its products, it doesn't mean that no one would buy it. A comparable example to this is the music industry's pirating problem. Even though many people use torrents to get their music for free, there exists this "sampling effect" that actually encourages people to buy music. Relating this to the author's suggestion that people wouldn't "shell out 70 euros for a boxed version", yes some would.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/01/dutch-government-stu...

> See? That is another typical example of the difference between open and closed source software. Will a great spell-checker be created by hobbyists in their spare time? No! It is a repetitive, boring task, and coding skill alone does not suffice. You also need language experts. Will they work for free? No! Then who will pay them?

Um... yes. A great free spellchecker has been created before. It is called Aspell (and others exist, also). Secondly, a spell checker doesn't require a "language expert", it simply requires a dictionary (or word list). Granted, there are funky grammar rules in some languages like conjugation, but they can be directly inserted into the dictionary. If you do need a "language expert", ask your friends to help (or if you are attending college, ask a foreign-language professor). Would they necessarily demand payment for their services? Of course, there are exeptions...

> For each of the software programs mentioned, there is a half-assed open source clone.

That is very rude! Programming for free is a labor of love! Why would a programmer "half-ass" something as hard as a clone of another program. If the programmer has no interest, then he or she would not even bother with creating the clone! Again, that is a very insulting remark.

Regarding the second half of the author's rant, people create their own resources for drivers. If it isn't there, make it! For example, open-source wireless drivers. There are a lot of different kinds of wireless cards available. Not all have a driver for Linux provided by the company. Therefore, people create their own, like MadWifi. If you need a specific driver, chances are that someone else probably already made it, especially the more popular products.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_wirel...

> Linux on the desktop is a joke. Nothing more.

A lot of people use it; how is it a joke?

No one environment suits everyone perfectly. MS Windows works for some, OS X works for others, and some prefer Linux. Please, do not generalize and say that Linux is not right for everyone.