Qt (KDE) is a natively object oriented design, which is a much more modern development paradigm, that allows for larger and more complex programs to be developed with less trouble. While GTK+ (GNOME) has gtkmm, it looks to me like a poor port into object oriented design. You can get flashy effects either way, but from a design and API perspective, I must say Qt beats the pants off of GTK+. I could be missing something important that exists in the rest of the KDE or GNOME development ecosystems, but it would have to be rather significant. Considering all the resources and backing that GNOME gets from distributions compared to KDE, it shows amazing design for KDE to get anywhere remotely close to feature parity.

While RH does give the product away, it does so in such a way that it encourages others send them improvements, which then encourages people to buy their software and services. For being Linux, Red Hat products aren't cheap.

A second potential damage is that someone steals RH software, patents their own little version and sues the original author. If there is a copyright violation, Red Hat may claim that Twin Peaks was only able to develop the patent because of the money from stolen software, whether it was just potential future income or actual payments.

Red Hat has asked for a permanent injunction against software that violates a copyright. Unless Twin Peaks decides to comply with the GPL, which would render any covered patents useless against RH, I wouldn't think it matters that the software is free. If they do open their mount under the GPL, it appears that would affect most of the patent. I do not have time to make a lot of sense out of something so poorly written (nor have I looked at the internals of mount and file system software), but most of the claims mention mounting or physical media devices.

They removed the CLI from my phone. I don't hear any Android users complaining that their Linux doesn't have it, but maybe you have some weird friends. I personally think the CLI is there in Linux because you can do a lot of things faster with a keyboard if you know what you're doing. Plus, it's easier for someone to follow directions that can be copied and pasted. It's also easier to type the few lines of directions than to shoot a video or capture screen shots of you fixing (and possibly even staging) a problem that doesn't exist, especially if you have to find a place to host the media and hope the forum doesn't reject the URL's. Directions for a GUI don't translate very well into plain text.

BTW, it's not all that unusual to include software updates/upgrades and even new versions in a support contract. I've run Linux for 15 years and yet to fall out of support or be forced to rebuy anything, but the Windows 98 license doesn't get me much of anything anymore. Manufacturers often have to pay to support drivers on Windows, aside from the differences in market share, why shouldn't I expect them to do so with Linux? NVIDIA can do it just fine, and there are plenty of drivers that have just required the manufacturer releasing enough specifications to the community. I'll have to take your word for it on fixing a problem with pulseaudio, since I've never once had a problem with it, but the time frame is in line with how long it takes to get my Windows install up to the level of driver and software support that comes out of the box on Linux (which installs while I'm still putting in information).

Computer software is a bit of an economic game changer from traditional communism, which makes it a rather unfair comparison. If I design a car, build a factory and create a production line to manufacture it, each copy of the car still costs a significant amount of money. I cannot keep giving the car away for free without needing others to do the same for me. If I write a program, I can post it on Google Code. It doesn't cost me a thing for 1,000,000 users to download it and do something productive with it. If I have a productive use (or just enough desire) for the software that covers my initial development cost, I may get more value in letting the community use and improve the product than the value I could get from selling and maintaining copies of it. If you have doubts that people will give away enough software products (programs or data) for free in order to build a viable community, perhaps I could introduce you to a website called YouTube(.com). It may not be big enough for you to have heard of it yet, but every second people upload 1 hour of new video and watch 1000 hours of video per second.

> "Actually, the problem is that out of the initial install it does so much less of what your average user wants it to do."

What version of Windows comes with an office suite, professional level photo editor, movie editor, DVD player, pdf viewer, rapid access to drivers for most printers, a software update system that handles all of their software, and a media player that plays more than just the formats endorsed for corporate control? What version of Windows has ever shipped with a game like Doom?

> 1. Learn how to interact with a new OS
This took all of setting my wife down at the computer and showing her the start menu. All the software is categorized and labeled for what it does. From day one, there was less frustration and asking for help.

> 2. Learn how to interact with all the new programs they will have to use to "replace" the ones from their old Windows environment
The high profile Linux apps tend have better laid out user interfaces, lowering the learning curve. It can be much more brutal to suffer Windows upgrades (e.g. Office 2007).

> 3. Learn how to navigate an entirely new file structure.
Are you actually more confused by having a single icon labeled "7.4 GiB Removable Media" to open the 8GB memory card in your card reader than you are by having to pick from F:, G:, H:, I:, J: and K: without any indication of which one has the card? I don't know what you're using to access your drives, but it has been quite a while since I haven't been able to just naturally access all my disks and partitions under Linux. I would never call the Windows drive letters sane, and I gave up on trying to find how to navigate my way to a different drive on Vista.

> 4. Accept that a lot of old, favorite programs just don't exist and don't have substitutes on Linux.
I'm still waiting for one to be named, and remember, if it runs on Android, it probably runs fine on the Linux desktop (with maybe a little setup). I'll throw out something on Linux that Windows doesn't have a substitute for, a prebuilt Live CD/DVD. Something valuable to me (and sometimes by extension, average users) is a good scripting language, which Linux beats Windows severely at. People find it wonderful, when you can easily piece together something automatic for them to address some preference or inconvenience.

Also, all (or at least most of) the high-end Hollywood software runs on Linux because it was easier to port to than Windows when leaving the high-end Unix workstations. With 95% of the major studio's servers and workstations running Linux, there's probably quite a bit of stuff that doesn't run on Windows, even if not all of it is marketed and sold. I would imagine some of the high-end engineering software falls into the same category, but I haven't checked.

> 5. Find out what of their hardware is "supported but not really" under Linux.
How long ago was this? Ubuntu (which is the basis of Mythbuntu) used to be really bad about access to drivers, especially proprietary ones, but they've gotten a lot better. I've had much worse problems under Windows, having to go online to fetch everything (which can be the end of the road for network drivers). It has been a long time since I've had hardware in Linux that wasn't supported from install or added automatically with a few guided clicks. Personally, I've had more problems with unsupported hardware on Windows (e.g. won't let me upgrade from the current Windows to a faster running release or driver package too big for remaining disk space).

Ooh! I just thought of software Linux doesn't have...separate update programs from every company along with some constantly running service to help launch their software faster. I suppose you could also count Internet Explorer, as it will browse the sites on the Internet that are not web sites but only Microsoft Internet Explorer sites (if there are any left). I also ran into a VPN appliance that didn't have a Linux client, but they had 100's of pages of people complaining about their terrible customer support. Their Windows client doesn't run in a Virtual Machine either.

Software previously mentioned:
> Photoshop
I remember Gimp being better than Photoshop CS1 for photo editing (features, UI layout, ease of use). They have since fallen behind, but are working on a major upgrade.
> Acrobat
There are plenty of reader programs on any platform. I'm usually in the command line, so I can just run most of the pro features from there. Does Acrobat Pro even support scripting? Linux has some ways of editing PDF's with a GUI as well, but I've never tested them. The only thing I think is missing is form support (open the document and type in the blanks), but that would be better handled with a web page, not a PDF.
> Sharepoint
I googled the program, and I'm still not sure what it specifically does other than provide Microsoft's proprietary vendor lock-in. I can collaborate remotely just fine using my phone, Skype, Google+, Google Docs and a Git service tied to project management software. The Google presentation software needs some work though. If I needed a more thorough document system that cross references other documents, I would just set up the project management's wiki.
> Call of Duty
America's Army? I don't much play FPS games, but I know there are some for Linux, including nearly all ID games.
> Quicken
GnuCash, but the market for such software is small enough that Microsoft dropped out. Most people that I know just track finances on their bank's website.
> Turbotax
All versions are available online, not just the 1040EZ (which I once did by phone).
> Support for their lousy $50 printer/copier
IIRC, all HP products are supported. I think all Epson products are supported. I'm not as sure here, but I think I remember Lexmark having full support (being formerly owned by IBM, who has a 100% Linux commitment), as well as brother. I know Canon doesn't support everything, since I have a model that Canon didn't release drivers for. It'd say it is the only product I've ever touched without Linux support, but for $40 TurboPrint supports it pretty nearly everything and gives professional level control over cheap printers. Again, this is a shrinking market.

They implemented the Ubuntu Software Center and Canonical Ltd. (the company that produces Ubuntu) has a few software projects: Launchpad, Bazaar, Landscape, Ubuntu One.