Plucky Under Dogs

How do you change the perception of an operating system? Windows is seen as the sensible business system, Apple's is the domain of the creative field and Ubuntu? When I first discovered Linux the back biting and in house fighting was the thing that most repelled me from becoming more involved. It reminded me of the constant scathing comments that the Windows world rained down on Apple users. I've worked on Apple machines dating back to the very early 90's when the company lurched from one problem to another, but I liked them. They were the plucky under dog and you could use them how you liked, rather than the over constrained Windows eco-system. What was puzzling was why people who were working on the massively dominate operating system felt the need to make any comment at all. I felt that there was a spark of individualism that the conformist masses distrusted, which made it all the more appealing.
Fast forward two decades and now Apple is moving towards one of Steve Jobs aims to be the next IBM. Unfortunately they seem to be adopting a similar mindset of dominating the industry and dictating what is best for the user. In my mind the user should be responsible for decision making and its the operating systems job to enable these actions.
Ubuntu is not perfect, but no operating system is. Many in the Linux community complain that Ubuntu is pushing Linux into the mainstream and they feel that this a dangerous path. Linux is main stream Android is growing, most of the world's servers are dependent on it and the Unix underpinnings are the founding stones of some of its competitors.
I like that Ubuntu is attempting to put a stake in the ground, to show that there is still an option that is based around choice rather than pre-subscribed options. Ubuntu needs to try to become more mainstream so that there is at least one plucky under dog having go, and who knows some under dogs do sometimes make it big.