Lou Grinzo, editor of LinuxProgramming.com, posted an article last night called Stop the Binary Insanity.  In it, he uses the Red Hat 7.0 compiler fiasco (shipping a one-off “patch” compiler that creates applications that are incompatible with just about everything else), and moves on to discuss the general lack of concern about release-to-release compatibility among open source developers.  It’s a well-thought and well-written article, and very much worth the read.  User-friendliness issues are all that’s holding Linux back now.  Without concern for “average” computer users, Linux in particular and open source in general will continue to be regarded as either a toy or too complex for “real people” to use.  If that’s what the community wants, then fine.  But if developers want open source to be taken seriously by the general public, then they’ll have to take their users’ concerns seriously.