I'm a long-time user of free/open source software, and write various things for both fun and profit. I don't take myself all that seriously and I do all of my own stunts.
You can find me at these fine establishments on the web: Open Source Musings, The Monday Kickoff, Weekly Musings. and The Plain Text Project.
Authored Comments
You can find a collection of examples at this website. The examples include the LaTeX source files and HTML and PDF output.
That's not true of everyone. The people I've helped move to Linux have gotten their hands dirty. Well, a little dirtier than most Windows or Mac users. None of them have become shell scripters, nor have they waded into the scary waters that are the files in the /etc directory. But they've learned enough to get themselves out of certain situations. And mostly without cracking open a terminal window.