The real problem with Linux is, non-commercial developers for this platform fall into two categories: IT-focused and show-offs. The former are very good at what they do but the software they develop is called something like devfs of gedit of oppenoffice.org -- great for a programmer, or even an office assistant, but with little connection to the rest of the world. The latter contribute things like GnomeMeeting or Komba or XBoard which often lack ease-of-use features, or have bugs, or are unsupported (no documentation); when these developers do decide to fix something it's often available only as source code which compiles only with the next generation gcc compiler, incompatible with your distro out of the box.

There is no such thing as backward compatibility on Linux. This OS is like a car -- what you buy is what you get, with little chances of being able to add new features, unless you're a geek. Moreover, should anything go wrong, you need to rely heavily on your own expertise to find a fix.

Enough with criticism. IMHO, the only chance for Linux to become mainstream lays with increasing the availability of commercial software for this platform. Obviously, Mr. Stallman's lack of flexibility doesn't help. If more Linux software were released under the LGPL or "dual-licenses" (see MySQL) then perhaps Linux would fare better.