Every since Linux first became popular, articles have been condemning its shortcomings. Hardly a month goes by without someone explaining what Linux lacks, or how it needs a particular feature, application, or service to be usable– and, as often as not, the complaints are misguided.
Admittedly, the free software that runs on Linux has some shortcomings. For example, you still can’t fill out PDF forms, or, in most countries, calculate your taxes using Linux. In other cases, such as optical character recognition or speech recognition, free software tools are available but primitive compared to proprietary ones. However, the number of legitimate shortcomings becomes smaller every year, and, increasingly the complaints are more likely to be the results of ignorance as anything else.
But what sorts of ignorance? That’s where the discussion becomes interesting: