Elementary OS Freya Released

One thing that concerns me is the upgrade path, it mentions in their docs that if you are using a previous version of the OS, you need to back up your data and reinstall.

On the substance rather than the wording, surely Hacker News does not agree, as a group, that open source software should never be monetized, especially on a voluntary basis. They have rewritten the Linux desktop environment from scratch, which is an enormous amount of work, and in my experience it works very well. Why not expect that you could find 10,000 users, many of whom people spending their professional life on computers, willing to pay $20 (which in the UK is about 4 cups of coffee), and actually be able to support some developers working on the project full time? That is not at all an unreasonable goal.

I know about 20 people over the age of 70 who I periodically help with computer problems, I would say about half of them still using XP on computers that cannot be upgraded to Windows 8. They principally use their computers for checking webmail and browsing the internet.

I have tried Ubuntu, but unfortunately it has all sorts of minor UI ruffles which make it difficult for many non-technical people to use. Some examples are: people really struggle to use its pop-up scroll bars, partly because the concept is apparently non obvious, and needs to be explained, and partly because they're fiddly. Then, programs often open in the background, and don't come to the front, so the only sign they're ready is an illuminated icon to the left. And, you get regular pop-up which say 'serious system error detected' which never seem to amount to anything.

And in general, I would say my experience is that it is not beautiful, polished or consistent enough to justify to non technical users the change in user interface which it asks them to make.

Linux is effectively a developer market, it is written by and for developers, to stratch and itch or for infrastructure. But there has been a consistent failure to produce an operating system that ordinary people want to use. In my opinion, Linux also needs a consumer market, which is willing to pay to bring in other professionals, principally designers, and support them in polishing the user interface, in the way that users want, to a heavy sheen. Elementary OS was a step in that direction, and it's very disappointing to see it apparently shot down for a lack of ideological purity and/or just being abrasive. Hopefully, despite the level of outrage which many people feel, they will be able to find their 10,000 users out of the general Linux community, and carry on regardless.