New article in the Economist criticizing Linux usability

[Christopher Browne]

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 2:45 AM, charles chris <cccharlz-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Linux needs to expand it's user base by allowing manufacturers of laptops to
> load Linux on them.
> Then there would be more support for Linux drivers especially for
> peripherals like webcams, network and standalone printers.

I don't want to be over-rude, but are you on crack or something?

Linux is already allowing manufacturers of laptops to load Linux on
them.  (There's something questionable about the identification of
agents in that sentence, but I'll leave that...)

The notable expression of proof of such is that Linux is used as a
major component of the Android platform, and there are all sorts of
manufacturers of phones, tablets, and other such widgets that are
busily porting Linux to run on their devices.

Vendors found participating in the Linux+Android-stuff toolchain to be
worthwhile; Samsung, HTC, and Motorola are certainly selling piles of
devices as a consequence.

There's nothing preventing manufacturers of laptops from doing much
the same.  The pre-existing use of the GPL with Linux expressly
enables such.

That, despite having conspicuous permission (that gets widely
expressed, in the case of the Android-running devices), we don't see
terribly many vendors selling laptops running Linux suggests that
other things are going on.
-- 
When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the
question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists