Red Hat and Novell have reportedly announced that they will NOT be after a share of the consumer desktop marketplace with a desktop offering of their respective Linux operating systems. I’m not sure if the community (of Linux users) perceives this news as good or bad, but I am here to tell you that it is good.

It’s good news because, aside from any of the other lingering flaws of a Linux operating system — package management woes, convoluted installation procedures, [still having to edit] .conf files — the one single greatest disadvantage that Linux has endured in the fight against Windows and Mac OS is that there is not one Linux, there are many.

A true Linux enthusiast will bash that point because the greatest advantage of Linux, for those who know how to use it, is choice. But average, everyday consumers outnumber true Linux enthusiasts by a healthy number. What Windows and Mac OS do for consumers is make the choices for them — see, not everybody values that type of freedom; not everybody wants to tinker with configuration files; not everybody wants (or can understand) the source code to their programs and operating system.

There is an old adage in the supermarket business that carrying too many different varieties of an item will hurt overall sales of that item in the end. It’s a complicated psychological problem that can be boiled down to simple statistics:

A huge percentage of the process of selling a product is simply getting the consumer to make the decision that they want it. Once that has happened, the rest is about convenience and various other less important factors. If the decision to buy is made to be questioned, even indirectly, a “definitely” turns into a “possibly”, and the seller gets screwed.

Why? Say you decide you want a loaf of bread. You go to the store, walk into the bread aisle, and there is one type of loaf. That’s your option, you have no decision to make. You buy the bread.

Take that scenario, and instead of one loaf, there are 50 different varieties. As soon as you see this, you start to think again; you need to re-decide what you want. At that point, a “definitely” has turned into a “possibly”. Instead of bread, maybe you’ll buy some wheat wraps…

The sale of the item has been lost. Obviously this is an example in which the specifics differ substantially from the specifics of choosing an operating system. However, the higher-level psychology remains the same. With a ton of options, the average consumer can become bewildered by the choice and look for a comfort zone. Aka Windows.

It’s looking now like Ubuntu is the de facto loaf. Cheers.