Linux Desktop Market

The article does hit the obvious:

"I don't think better software or increased compatibility will have any effect: playing follow the leader, anoints the other guy as leader."

Which is all that OSS can do in general. No marketing means no product market planning, hence eternal tail-chasing. Far easier to fix code, if there really is a problem, than to fix a business strategy that doesn't allow for profit.

"That the people who sell and support desktops at the local level make more short term money on a Windows-XP installation than on Linux and have better long term social and economic prospects supporting Windows than Linux;"

That's the other side of the coin for linux. It doesn't actually offer anything better for the user and it offers a worse scenario to the people who distribute and support. Who loves ya, baby? LOL!!!

"Specifically: the invincible ignorance of the non-technical decision maker who considers computers nerdish and therefore socially untouchable, while treating people like Bill Gates and Michael Dell as heroes of American business acumen."

Said like the typical linux sour grapes complaint, but spun the other way, linux requires an attention to computer technology detail that the great majority of users are not willing to give to something that is not a real problem. Gates, Dell, even Jobs are looked upon as modern business successes that maintain the hope that, in the land of the free, anyone with a dream and a willingness to work hard can achieve success.