Read every single comment, all the way down to -1.
Nobody has addressed " What I'd really like to see more of are more non-technical contributors. I mean, yes, we can always benefit from more packagers and coders and engineers, but I think what we really need desperately are writers, designers, artists, videographers, communicators, organizers and planners. ".
Linux has a HUGE communication problem.
Linux not only has a huge communication problem, it steadfastly refuses to even entertain the possibility that communication is even something that requires any kind of serious and polished attention in the first place.
And it fails horribly, with the general populace, right there.
Linux fails to accept that there are "iron laws" of communication, and in so doing, breaks all of them, and in so doing, loses the general populace, who will never in their lives sit still for being talked to, will never sit still for being communicated with, be it linguistically, be it visually, or be it any other way, in the manner in which Linux everlastingly insists in attempting to communicate with them, and then goes off scratching its head, wondering why people "don't get it."
The problem is Linux, not the people.
And by "Linux" I mean the entire community of people who design, build, and implement it.
A minority of which, being so vanishingly small as to not even show up when you're actually looking for them, who actually can communicate, but who exist in numbers so small, and constitute a fraction of the total body of people who design, build, and implement, which is so small that it disappears altogether from sensible view.
An example of one of the “iron laws” of communication, for all the hard-heads out there who double down on their refusal to accept or accede to such things.
If they’re not laughing, then it’s not funny.
Period.
It does not matter if you think it’s funny. Keep it to yourself, if you think it’s funny. Fine and dandy. No worries, mate. But the instant you open your mouth and communicate it to someone else, it had better damn well cause them to laugh or it’s not funny.
Period.
And right here is where Linux fails so horribly as to cause people, normal people, members of the general populace, to cringe deeply, and recoil from Linux as if it was something with a disease that they fear catching if they stay too close to it for too long.
And don’t forget, hard-heads, that I’m not just talking about humor. I’m only using my example of The Iron Law of Humor in an effort to simplify things to the point where even hard-heads can figure it out.
The failures of Linux to communicate, the failures of Linux to engage successfully with the general populace, the failures of Linux to abide by The Iron Laws of Communication, are so vast in scope as to defy enumerating them all.
All the little in-groups in Linux have all their little in-group ways, and inside the group, it’s all so very wonderful, and everything is seen through rose-colored glasses.
But nobody ever seems to want to step outside and find out what the general populace might be thinking about it.
Which is unfortunate to an extreme, because the general populace is having none of it.
The general populace despises all the “cutsey” crap that Linux insists in wrapping itself up in, all of which is clearly (as seen by the general populace) the creation of lamers, social misfits, and tone-deaf idiots, from one end to the other, without exception.
Another example.
“GNU's Not Unix.”
GNU’s not funny, either.
And recursive acronyms constitute felony assault against any attempt to engage with, bond with, or even communicate with the general populace.
And the lameness of the logo that’s associated with GNU is enough to take your breath away. People. Think. It’s. Lame.
And it is.
And that’s only a single example.
It’s only a single egregious faux pas in attempting to communicate with the general populace, among too many to count.
And the penguin is lame, sitting there on it’s ass, feet stuck out in front of it in a posture no real penguin will ever be seen sitting in, with a blank look of deep stupidity on it’s face.
And you people have bonded with it.
You people have bonded with the very thing that causes everybody else in the world to view you with contempt.
To view you as lamers and losers.
And this is the first thing that people see when they’re introduced to Lunux.
And that fox-thing, or dog-thing, or whateverthehellitis-thing that’s plastered across a program that’s called “GIMP”? GIMP ???
No
We’re not even going to be talking about a thing which is that lame.
People hate that crap. They HATE it.
And Linux hates that it’s hated, right back, and right there, all communication with the general populace is ended, and all chance of integrating with the general populace is destroyed.
You like your little cutesy naming conventions.
You like your little cutesy visuals.
You like your incomprehensibly-opaque lingo with little in-group hooks and jokes buried inside of it.
You like all of it.
Ok.
Fine.
Whatever you want. It’s all good.
Just don’t be coming out here with it, attempting to shove it in our faces, expecting that we are going to be liking it too, because we don’t.
You wanna come out here and engage with us, then you’ll do it on our terms, or you won’t do it at all.
You’ll learn how to be engaging on our terms, or you won’t be engaging at all.
And if you want to learn how to be engaging, then the first thing you’ll do is to recognize the seriousness of it all, and stop giving a bunch of amateurs and lamers total control over it.
Hand that kind of work over to the kind of people who know the discipline, and who know how to implement it, in the exact same way you hand coding over to the kind of people who know the discipline and who know how to implement it.
No difference.
None at all.
The exterior surface of Linux, the part that the general populace sees, is the ugliest, and least-engaging, and most impossible to understand, part of the entire operation.
The part that people see FIRST.
WHY?
Why insist on a thing like that?
If you’re going to communicate well then communicate.
Nothing less will do.
Nothing less will ever stand a chance of working.
Obey the Iron Laws of Communication, or go back inside where you came from and quit bemoaning the fact that the rest of us out here are never going to be signing on for your whatever it is that you’re doing, because whatever it is, it’s very definitely not communication.
