:edit 2019-02-17: The article below (that I wrote in 2017 on medium.com) was primarily written to respond to Canonical polling users on what were their preferred Ubuntu applications were in various categories. The question seemed to indicate that Canonical doesn’t understand why Ubuntu still does not have the competitive Linux desktop experience that they promoted from the start. My article attempts to shift the debate to address the real non-starter issue–how open source can catch up with, and improve upon, the relationship of Windows and Windows Server. Satya Nadella of Microsoft, in one of his first public speaches, pointed out an important fact on this topic: “Productivity isn’t a niche–it’s the whole thing!”
https://medium.com/@poikilos/first-the-good-thanks-for-switching-from-lightdm-d25246b72ffa