The world is ruled by two desktop platforms:

Microsoft’s Windows Apple’s OS X

Linux was never a contender. It has tried — God, it has tried! — for more than a decade to compete with Windows. But it was never able to gain any traction. (Linux has been very successful in the server space, however.)

Linux aficionados will tell you that they don’t care. They use desktop Linux and they are very happy with it. They are also disingenuous (or totally clueless).

If Open Source developers were truly indifferent to desktop Linux’s market share, then why are there so many distros competing for attention. Just visit distrowatch.com, for example. It almost seems like there’s a new distro popping up every month! And some of them are touting how simple their distro is, how approachable for Windows defectors. (Recent entries include elementary OS, Zorin, and Deepin.)

The truth is, people do care whether desktop Linux achieves mainstream popularity. There’s an element of ego in this whole thing. It makes people feel proud for being part of the revolution against Windows. They want Linux to receive the recognition that it deserves, and that means big market share.

(Currently, desktop Linux occupies a paltry 1.67 per cent of the market, according to Net Applications in August, 2014. That’s one quarter of OS X’s 6.74 per cent.

The numbers from StatCounter are even worse, with Linux getting 1.42 per cent and OS X getting 9.17 per cent.)

So why has desktop Linux failed? The following is a pretty good summary:

Lack of desktop Linux pre-installs. The average consumer does not want to install his own OS. Lack of desktop Linux marketing. Even if Linux PCs were commercially available, no company wants to invest in their marketing. Lack of a single, unifying distro. The average consumer does not want choice; too many choices result in confusion. Just rally behind something like Linux Mint and be done with it. Please, get rid of all other distros! Lack of focus on “business value” in the enterprise. If you want desktop Linux to succeed in the business world (and, really, you do!), then developers must solve their business/connectivity problems. Lack of stability. Desktop Linux distros are changing too rapidly. Major changes should come slowly, with years separating them. (I’m looking at you, GNOME.) Lack of component compatibility. Standardize on a set of software components and simplify the mess that currently exists. This applies particularly to components outside of the chosen distro. Lack of a wonderful user experience. Do not ask users to rely on the command line. Pay attention to details and make the user experience buttery smooth. Lack of quality driver support. For heaven’s sake, don’t ask users to employ workarounds for driver issues. Device compatibility should work straight out of the box! Get hardware vendors to write Linux drivers for their damn products.

The key to success is positive user experience. Desktop Linux isn’t there yet. Developers must make Linux as convenient as Windows and OS X. This will require a concerted, coordinated effort. But without a major corporate backer, who’s going to do the coordinating? Who’s going to drive the clean-up of the current Linux milieu?

Therein lies the dilemma.