Over 1 billion people use Microsoft products, but let’s all listen to @[email protected] 's anecdote about his IT dept. I genuinely believe your anecdote, but it’s irrelevant. And until OSS evangelists (of which I am one!) realize that other people exist and have different preferences and experiences, MS will keep winning.

Oh no, some crank who can’t understand that other people have preferences won’t take me seriously. This is a major loss. I am so owned. This definitely isn’t emblematic of the problem with the OSS community.

I started the name calling by saying “tech brained” so I apologize and I’ll ease off on that.

With that said, I have to strongly disagree with you. I use MS Office, LibreOffice, and Google Docs regularly, and IMO the ribbon was a huge improvement for word processors and spreadsheets over traditional drop-down menus. Drop-Down menus have their place but for document editing they are not ideal.

This an incredibly tech-brained answer. “Sure, lots of OSS is difficult to install, breaks frequently, and lacks key features, but did you know Microsoft sometimes moves a menu item?”

I love OSS and I want it to succeed but “an item moved” isn’t in the same ballpark as the barriers to OSS adoption.

The problem: our desire for convenience

Bring on the downvotes, but: When it comes to tools like computers, convenience is synonymous with productivity. People aren’t unreasonably demanding to have their hands held, they want to get stuff done. We need to stop acting like convenience productivity is just one of many concerns. It is the primary concern.

Freedom is nice but to most people it’s only important if it helps us do the things we want to do.