I understand what you're saying and as I've just realised in another reply, I wasn't really that clear. Linux the kernel is widely adopted and a huge sucess.

I understand what you're saying and as I've just realised in another reply, I wasn't really that clear. Linux the kernel is widely adopted and a huge sucess. But the GUI aspect, the bit the user actually interacts with, isn't. There's so many choices. A vendor can't just built a single binary easily like they can for Windows/MacOS. It's this, the fragmentation of the user-space that's my concern. WebOS is built on Linux anyway, that'll never be a problem. You can "can simply get Ubuntu and not worry about it". I know that, you know that, most technical people know that. I guess it's not too hard for most non-technical people to figure that out, but look at Linux Mint. It's suddenly taking off in a big way. How do I know which one to pick? Which one is going to run the apps I need etc? It's that - the confusion - that I worry might also happen to WebOS if 10 different builds are released.