Despite coming from a very rich and early history, linux OS consumer market share is less than 1% [1,2]; and the community more divided than ever. What are we doing wrong?

I think linux users as a community are not as helpful as everyone would like you to believe. We scare new linux adopters, and scoff at any suggestions that might seem “window-like”.

So what if I don’t explicitly mention that “linux” is actually a kernel?

I should rather call it GNU/Linux.
We should only use open-source software.
Propriety software are bad.
Don’t customize your desktop manager to look like Vista or OSX. If you do, you are an idiot.
You use Ubuntu, you must be newbie.
X window manager is better than Y window manager, KDE looks like windows; you should rather use windows.

We must acknowledge that linux has its fair share of problems; and must help the cross-over windows users experience to be as easy as possible. A linux user experience needs to be more than just security. Mark Shuttleworth recently stated that he wants “to make a concerted effort not just to catch Apple but to overtake the company in the quality of the desktop experience they deliver users.” This is not an impossible goal but the right direction linux should be heading towards. We should make the linux desktop user experience attractive enough for users to consider using linux. Microsoft is on the defensive with the many problems with vista and it’s previous versions of windows. While apple, despite being a very expensive computer system, gaining market share at the expense of Microsoft’s misfortune; Linux community failed to take advantage of the situation. ZDnet blog author Jeremy Allison made a very good argument last week, when he said: Linux Needs More Haters. To quote one of his sentence, “In the long run, we all need to become LinuxHaters in order to give our favorite software the tough love it needs to become as popular as I think it deserves to be.”

I couldn’t agree more. I think most linux users are too serious. Please discuss.