The entire community should just
get behind the Linspire initiative, or something very similar! Before Linspire was linspire, it was Lindows, a linux distro trying to mimick and deliver the experience that people are familiar with in windows. I understand Linspire is now under/alongside Xandros, so i don't know where it lost it's way, but the idea was perfect. Their pre-installed distro was even being sold in WalMart!
Sounds stupid to some maybe, but with enough momentum and clout this should have been the movement that brought linux to the massive masses.
Speaking as a non-geek, what linux needs is consistency and predictability. It's fine that it's so flexible and diverse and all things to all geeky men, but in a world where most people have a specific list of things that they expect to be able to do with/on a computer, the linux community should really be working to establish what that list is, develop child-proof solutions for each of those items on the list, bundle those things into a distro, back it with unprecedented hardware support and watch the thing fly.
As people ask for more, reach to that massive linux shelf, and give them more. Make it child-proof, and it will sell itself....