Desktop Linux (fwd)

[Travis Roy]

You know why linux will fail on the desktop for most families..

When Matt comes home with his new copy of Grand Theft Auto from the 
store and can't play it because they're running that weird linux thing 
rather then windows.

Same thing for any other "cool" software the family is looking for.. 
Yes, I realize that there are thousands and thousands of free OSS 
titles out there but the problem is that for people that just want to 
go out and get Quicken to do their finances (and no, GnuCash is not 
even close to Quicken for features/ease of use), or TurboTax or 
whatever. They want to just get software they've heard of, that others 
have used, and that, strangely enough, you can buy from a store.. They 
seem to think there's more accountability if you can buy it from a 
store. I'm sure we've all run into the boss that won't let you put 
linux on a server because of the way it's developed. They feel that 
there's no accountability because there's no company behind it. We all 
know that it's a load of crap, MS is not gonna help you when your 
MS-SQL database eats your customer records even if you spent tons on a 
support contract, but it gives people, even home users, a warm and 
fuzzy feeling.