Comment by TheOtherHobbes

M$FT revenue is currently around $300bn a year, with a 40% profit margin. Canonical's revenue is less than $300m.

Even if Canonical wanted to create a perfect version of Ubuntu with driver support for almost everything and as many desktop bugs removed as possible, they still can't afford to do it.

A credible Linux-on-the-desktop needs a global or multinational consumer-oriented foundation that can herd all the cats and turn desktop Linux into a professionally-managed project with proper beta testing and some interest in user experience.

That's a 180 from Linux culture, so it's unlikely to ever happen.

The Linux Foundation is not that Linux foundation, because it's not remotely desktop or consumer-oriented. freedesktop.org is a nice side project but doesn't have anything like the budget or the profile or resources required.

That is literally the only way to make a desktop version that can compete with Windows and OS X.

There's an obvious opportunity for someone to do this for governments now - a standard gov-optimised distro with enhanced security and access control and a collection of boring productivity software.