this is why so few "business types" got, or get, OSS and Linux. it is a meritocracy - the motive is to make things work, and work as well as they can. if things don't work, they are not used, or they are improved by someone looking to make it work - everyone is free to examine the faults and contribute if they want to. for many if not most OSS developers there is little or no profit motive. there is no "business model" - the corporations trying to profit from Linux, like IBM and RHAT, came after the development was already mature - and if it had been developed for profit, it would have gone the route of sco, irix, etc. this concept is completely foreign to the traditional american business model, where anything that makes money is ipso facto good, and if you can profit by producing inferior pieces of crap, even better. look at hollywood and the auto industry, for example.
More on: when will next M$ OS be available? http://beta.news.com.com/Microsofts...eality/2100-1012_3-5877197.html?tag=nefd.lede PS: remember the main software development choice of Google? (python)
""The Fedora Project is an openly-developed project designed by Red Hat, open for general participation, led by a meritocracy, and following a set of project objectives. The results from this project include Fedora Core, a complete, general-purpose operating system built exclusively from open source software. "" Now, I have worked for $soft and I can tell you that many of these open source projects produce IMHO better quality code and ultimately better products. Moreover Linux is not bound to the issues connected to the architecture of the $soft kernel and application stacks. The developers - or their companies - donate time and thus dollars to the projects. At the end of the day they have a realiable robust OS not held hostage by any one company and this is their direct benefit for the donation. In many ways I view the building of open source tools and OS's as being similar to the building of the national long distance system (except there is no massive govenment handouts).
I have some very simple examples for you : Under windows : - How can you become another user without logging out ? - How can you run a remote graphical session ? - How can you run N different graphical sessions in parallel ? Because under linux, you can.... OK, first property is a consequence of using the gnu system and last two properties are a consequence of using 'X', not linux...which only refers to the kernel....but who cares... if we enter into the technicalities of the kernel, we will loose 99% of the audience... By the way, linux is shit when you think it is a monolithic kernel and a piece of crap written in C....
On the topic of MS Vista, it appears that it will come in seven different flavours (unlike XP which only has home and professional). All (except the most expensive of course) will be crippled in various ways. And no doubt Server 200X will add a few more flavours as well. Unlike Linux where you get ummmm ..... Linux. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050910-5298.html
Do you really know the difference between XP home and pro ? Are you sure it's not exactly the same, but home version is just limited ?