Is anyone trying to blur the lines by arguing that Linux is "just as bad as Windows"? It certainly would be to Microsoft's benefit if that argument about such bogus equivalency could be successfully made. I still remember that the Apache folks fixed a major vulnerability within three to four days of its being reported (aside from coming up with a workaround within four hours). In contrast, it would take Microsoft probably up to six weeks just to admit that they might have a problem.

Yes, the TCP/IP commands in Windows 2000 are definitely more robust than those in Windows NT - Ripping off BSD code wholesale may have something to do with that improvement. If Windows 2000 has become more robust, it is because it has become more like UNIX rather than vice-versa.

The fact is that there are many more paper MCSEs than Linux people who don't know what the hell they are doing - courtesy of Microsoft's totally relevant certification testing. The fact is that Linux is enjoying deeper penetration in the server market (25% and up), and that most web servers right now are Apache if my memory serves recall correctly). These numbers were achieved in the absence of any major marketing campaign supporting Linux.

I submit that Windows will not survive unless its designers convince the world that it has the robustness of UNIX because it is UNIX under the hood, and unless it has a far more constructive relationship with the Open Source movement - Innovations such as PHP and python certainly did not originate with Microsoft. I am not too happy with products such as Open Office because the energy of the Open Source should be directed to innovation and meeting users' needs in innovative ways rather than aping the latest Microsoft dumb move.

If anything, the Open Source movement has shown conclusively that Microsoft is far from having a monopoly on the world's best programmers, and that the profit motive is far from the only motive that drives human innovation and progress. The pharmaceutical companies would not be anything without the research of the NIH, and Silicon Valley would not have produced anything but oranges without Stanford University and UC berkeley. And if they are smart, then the marketing heads at Microsoft will realize that Microsoft will not have a future without Open Source.

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