How about a comparison on merit, not marketing 1509

snip keeping the above for context

I think you have me confused with someone else. I haven't made any claims regarding the commercial success of Linux. I answered your question by giving examples of commercial interests serving the niche market of computer professionals. That's quite a different thing from claiming that Linux is a success because of those companies.

I am not constrained to using commercial Linux. I used to use one, but they did some things that annoyed me, so I switched. I can't do that with Microsoft unless I'm willing to change my entire environment.

Sure, Microsoft recommends different versions of Windows to different customers. But those versions of Windows are all designed with the same philosophy whereby flexibility is attained by buying different products rather than by reconfiguring one product, even though the "different products" are in fact derived from the same code base.

You're still stuck with the configurations that Microsoft chooses to offer. It is still a mbutt market mentality until you spend really big bucks.

If you say so. You appear to know next to nothing about Linux so I guess we're even.

I buy a laptop with XP Home. I take it to place that lets me log onto their network, but they use Active Directory. Is there some product I can add to XP Home to get AD support? No, I must buy a new OS (probably for full retail) and reinstall my laptop. Hopefully my apps will still work, but it is likely that I will have to reinstall some of them.

I set a up a small demonstration server for my department. I use XP Pro because the computer came with it and the project is experimental anyway. Later, the service gets popular and I'm going over the limit of ten connections at once. Can I just call up MS and get a new license key or something? No, I must buy a different version of Windows that comes with stuff I don't need, and then buy CAL's on top of that.

With Microsoft, incrementally moving from point A to point B is harder than it should be. Reacting quickly to changing situations is harder than it should be. Everything is more expensive than it should be, especially when indirect costs like ensuring license compliance are considered.

More than that, if I want to avoid having to reinstall later I have to predict what my future needs will be and pay for the maximum capability I might end up needing later on. I can only add functions incrementally until I come upon a breakpoint where Microsoft has arbitrarily decided that I need a different product.

And even with the most expensive products I still need a lot of third party software to make it do anything useful. I don't get even simple things like a decent shell language or nmap or tcpdump unless I buy yet another product for yet another price, or else spend my time chasing them down on my own.

There is no feature equivalent to "apt-get" in Debian where I can just load what I need from a repository. I would even be willing to pay a fee for that, but it isn't offered. Debian gets my money instead.

Yes, it does. But because it is aimed at "average" usage patterns, by definition it cannot satisfy everyone.

My point, again, is that Microsoft does not make a product that allows third parties to customize it to the same degree that Linux can be customized. Even XP Embedded falls short in flexibility.

You can take a Linux installation and make it into whatever you want. If on the other hand you want a pre-packaged solution, you can get that too, from any of several vendors who have different philosophies about what to include. You pick the one that fits your needs best.

With Microsoft, you get what Microsoft chooses to offer. Nobody else can offer a Windows that's configured differently. If for some reason you want a version that's just like XP Pro but allows unlimited TCP connections, you can't have it, even if you're willing to do the work yourself or hire someone to do it. You can't even pay Microsoft to do special versions unless you are a huge customer.

With Linux even the smallest customer can customize it however he wants.

Yes, and I am one of those people. Microsoft falls short, so I don't use their products. They aren't designed for people like me.

You're the one predicting the doom of Linux, you tell us.

-- - Bob Hauck - A proud member of the reality-based community.