Second post in my series of "constructive criticism" of Linux, titled "More people would switch to Linux if..."

To review, the reasons posted in this post were:

    1.  Pre-install a package manager by default. (This is for noob-friendliness.)
    2.  Get behind communities building "killer apps." (The "why should I switch, what can Linux do that Windows can't" factor.)
    3.  Get behind communities building software replacements. (The "hey, this isn't so different after all" factor.)
    4.  Get software replacements into the hands of Windows users. (On their Windows computers, no less. This is the "hey, this is exactly the same" factor of Gaim, OpenOffice, etc.)
    5.  Do things right. (Accessibility shouldn't break your programs. Your programs shouldn't override OS settings such as sound.)

Now, on to new stuff!

    6.  One marketing person per every 100 technical people. This is a very conservative number if you were a company, but does the Linux community have even that? If so, they're not doing too good a job! General public awareness is just not there.
    7.  Publicize anti-DRM information. Honestly, reading about DRM stuff in Vista is one of the main reasons why I'm not all too interested in test-driving it. If they knew how Windows is helping content owners take over the world, I believe that most people would be very unhappy with the concept and take more interest in Linux. Assuming you've completed number 6, that is.
    8.  Attract commercial software developers, aka "get the gamers." I'm all for free and open software, really I am. If you add up how much I would have spent on commercial photo editing, office, and genealogy software, you'll see why (which is not news to Linux users, of course). However, to gain market share in this industry, you have to get the gamers. To get the gamers, you have to get the games. Blockbuster games come from big companies, not small communities with limited resources spread all over the world. (Muds come from those communities!)
Now, which will come first, the chicken or the egg? Will the gamers switch before there are games, or will the companies make games before there's a Linux-using audience pounding on their doors?
    9.  Standardize software installation and increase compatibility. What happens when you have open source software that is being used by people in multiple distributions? You create packages for each one. What happens if your distribution isn't one that has a package made for it? You download the source and compile it.
What happens if your software is not open source (see above)? You have to either make packages for every distro your users might possibly use, or you have to exclude people. I bought a commercial game for Linux not long ago, and it wouldn't run on my computer because I'm running 64 bit Ubuntu. That sort of thing needs to be resolved before you can go after the gamers.
    10.  Improve Windows emulation. This is also in line with "get the gamers." I recall when I was 13-14 (10 years ago) working on the NeXT operating system (see, I'm a little bit oldskool!), and in fact I participated in a NeXT Users Group. I'm not sure if it was virtualization or emulation, but they had a really nifty Windows widget for running Windows stuff. 10 years later, I'm amazed at how much effort this takes to set up on a modern Linux system.
Again, as with point number 1 about package managers, I acknowledge that it's not hard for people who have been using Linux for a while, but that's the problem. If it's hard for me, the diet coke of nerdyness (a la Dr. Evil), it's going to be hard for the people who are not using Linux because it doesn't run their Windows programs. Maybe if this worked out of the box as well...

Imagine this- I pop a Windows CD into my cd drive, such as a computer game with simulated people that shall go nameless. ;) The computer recognizes that there's an autorun that points to an exe. It asks me, do you want to auto-run this exe? Yes, I say, run it. The computer then opens a virtual machine and displays it as a new desktop on my taskbar, with a big arrow pointing to it saying your program is ready here. Score! No more longings for Windows now!

That's all for now, I'll be back when I have another 5 or so!

P.S. I think that these things need to be done pretty soon to get a big jump on Windows. There's a window of opportunity coming up with Vista's release, because of several things: necessity of hardware upgrades, cost of hardware/OS/software upgrades, and Vista DRM. Once people swallow the cost, have the "Vista compatible" hardware, and live within DRM rules (not thinking that they'll get more stringent with time), they'll be more resistant to change than in the window of time when they're making the change from XP to Vista.