Re: Linux in its current form will never be mainstream
> Linux remains about as far from user friendly as it's probably possible to achieve for an OS. And it's intended to be this way.
Yes. Thousands of hours of research into user interfaces for enough DE's to suit anyone, sure. Android has obviously faced a huge problem in this area.
> A box of delights with which to tinker - if you have infinite time on your hands to do so. In the face of all the global industrial-political corruption we're seeing in recent years, a little voice inside of me is crying out for a genuinely usable open-source OS.
Terribly unusable. I mean it can't even run internet exploder 9! And dear heavens what will we all do without our outlook and having the ability to install executables with a wizard! Where the hell is the C: drive and where's the defrag utility!? There's no start button. I can't use this.
> All it will take is the buy-in of either the Linux dev community (not going to happen, they like the exclusivity too much),
You mean IBM, Intel, SuSE, Redhat, Canonical, Epson..... then yes. I'm sure embedded manufacturers enjoy exclusively using Linux in their products also.
> or some new organisation to grab the kernel sources and put an awesome UI on top.
Kind of like Redhat? (read: Gnome).
> Tie a DirectX emulator in
No. You do not solve the problem by making a new implementation of the similar system. You of all people must have seen how far silverlight has gotten in this world.