I'm sure I've written this before, and the actual idea is taken from elsewhere as well. However, the current post was inspired by a thread in The Joel on Software Forum about whether Linux would become a mainstream OS. One poster wrote To get Microsoft's security fix information all you have to do is go to micorsoft.com. One stop shopping. comparing this favourably to Linux.

This weeks MS SQL worm/virus gives the lie to that claim. Just having the fix available isn't enough it appears, looks like you also need a good Windows admin to make sure all the security holes are closed. RedHat also an auto install of fixes similar to windows and it works very well in my experience.

What Linux has done at this point is reduce the cost of a decent stable OS to around zero. Any money you're paying to Microsoft must therefore be for something above and beyond a decent stable OS. If you think what you're getting is worth the money then that's fine. Other people are starting to decide that it's not and that's where the problems start of MS. The cat's out of the bag on this one, if windows is worth $100, or whatever, then it must deliver that amount of value in addition to just being an OS.