"This reputation for pretension may be undeserved, but it's
something the Ubuntu community needs to deal with more
actively.
"The images of proprietary operating systems are carefully
molded by corporate PR departments. Apple spends millions of
dollars presenting Macs and OS X as the computing platform of
fashionable, free-thinking hipsters, while Microsoft has devoted
huge sums in the last several years to reconfiguring popular
perceptions of Windows as an exciting and customizable operating
system. These images may not reflect the reality of Apple and
Microsoft's customer bases very much, but they nonetheless play a
vital role in the ability of OS X and Windows to attract (or
retain) users.
"The free-software community, which lacks a centralized voice
and has little money to spend on advertising or market research,
does not enjoy the assistance of public-relations professionals to
help cultivate a positive image of Linux in the public mind.
Perhaps because of this absence of organized self-presentation,
more than any actual extant characteristics of Linux users or
developers, the world’s most popular free operating system
remains plagued by stereotypes that pose a real obstacle to
recruitment of new users."
