What People Expect From Linux

Checkout this Honda advertisement (its in German)

Don’t worry if you don’t understand German, the visuals are enough to make the point. It makes two statements about the car, in bold:

• that it is a solution
• that it is customizable and flexible, with ease

The automation shown is an exaggeration, but it serves the purpose of displyaing ease with which the insides can be adjusted to accomodate stuff. The perception would be completely different if it was shown that the guy manually loads all that stuff. The ease is something that appeals to the layman, maybe not to the technologist. Maybe we need more videos like these, for Linux ;-).

This is what people expect from Linux. The problem is that Linux is not a single entity, but an entire community. Another problem is that Linux can have a wider user base. May be Linux needs to group them and provide customizations to each of them. Some are already doing this, but Linux community does not project that image for sure. At the cost of repetition, Linux has to behave as a solution, not as a product. Maybe some are already doing that, but the Linux community is still engaged in discussing Gnome v/s KDE or Linux as open source v/s Linux as utility. The layman is looking for solutions and these discussions bring out more problems. Not that they are not important, but they should be limited to the technologists. The layman is more interested in things that just work, without additional effort.

Desktop Linux is making its way, by showing that things just work it can reach out to the common man.