In the sense the author was saying 'Gnome is a bit bad, but Microsoft does this much better, which is why it wins' I was intuiting that the author believes Micr

In the sense the author was saying 'Gnome is a bit bad, but Microsoft does this much better, which is why it wins' I was intuiting that the author believes Microsoft does not have extremely frustrating, long-lived, bugs within their basic OS suite. Cue contra-example. I've used Gnome perhaps for a dozen hours in the past twenty years - none of those (the dozen hours, not the two decades) were especially pleasant, but not because of this missing feature enhancement. So perhaps I'm not well positioned to cast judgement there. Anyway, any claim that an operating system is intuitive is subject to much discussion. I endorse the early 90's (perhaps predating even then) claim that the only intuitive interface is the nipple, beyond that the necessary interactions are learned. And - hello again, yes - I'll weigh in on the somewhat plaintive 'if we want normal people to use free software' rejoinder with a marginally cynical observation. Normal people can understand how computers work, and adjust their expectations, behaviour, and workflows to suit - worst case they'll acquire the necessary skills to file bug reports or fix it themselves. Average people, on the other hand, are less likely to be satisfied.